1. Wear the emperor’s new clothes
Ever the wallflower, Alan Cumming has always enjoyed taking the norms of red-carpet fashion and subverting them. Be it sequins, trainers or this “buff” suit (their words) from Calvin Klein’s spring/summer 2015 collection, which references the rise of this shade in fashion circles (from Stuart Weitzman’s Nudist shoe to nail varnish) while mocking it (he’s matches the suit to his skin tone). Smart ass.
2. Beards are dead
Dude, it’s January! Just playing. Farrell’s ’tache might smack of Magnum PI but the truth is he grew it for his role in The Lobster, an Ishiguro-style sci-fi film about single people who are forced to couple up – which sounds brilliant – and is presumably wearing it on the red carpet to remind everyone that he’s still in work. Plus it follows the universal stipulation that if you can grow facial hair then you should at least have a go.
3. Wear statement glasses
Cumberbatch’s stock is so terrifyingly high that even if his thick rimmed glasses just had ordinary glass in them and were worn purely for aesthetic reasons, it wouldn’t matter because he couldn’t hear us from down here.
4. Man buns are dead
It’s safe to say that, since Jared Leto started growing his hair two years ago, his whole look has really opened up. Be it dip dyed (over!), bun’d (over!) or here, braided, a la Cary Fukunaga, he somehow pulls it off. Whether you can actually name more than two films starring Jared Leto is irrelevent.
5. Dress like a Wes Anderson film
Or simply Wes Anderson, who chose a pop of provincial chic with his tablecloth gingham shirt. Meta. Still, fashion has long looked to Anderson’s oeuvre for inspiration: from Prada to Lanvin to today’s Burberry collection at the London Collections: Men, he’s basically Anna Wintour if she forgot her hairbrush.
6. Play it safe if you’re shortlisted
Eddie Redmayne was one of the few actors to actually look to fashion for guidance, choosing a velvet Gucci suit and looking suitably louche and 1970s. Relatively tame by this year’s standards but since he won best actor, we’ll applaud it.
7. If in doubt, cut loose
Apparently the air con was broken at the 2015 Golden Globes, which may explain why The OC’s Kelly Rutherford’s guest felt like making himself as at home as he did here.
