Bill Nighy Is a Menswear King

Within the run as much as this weekend, there’s been a whole lot of chatter a couple of sure well-dressed chap with a detailed relationship to Britain’s most outstanding kingmaker. The penchant for Savile Row fits, a relish for the cheeky bon mot—we’re speaking, after all, about Invoice Nighy, the wry septuagenarian who’s within the midst of a pink carpet blitz for the ages. 

Nighy is a go well with man par excellence; the one factor he loves greater than sporting them is speaking about them, typically in heart-wrenching, refreshingly candid trend.“I do know it’s all nonsense and I do know there’s nothing unsuitable with the best way I look,” he as soon as informed an interviewer, “however I’ve by no means been notably assured in that space and a go well with helps me out.” When our colleagues throughout the pond profiled him final yr, they famous his appreciation for the kind of wonky sartorial particulars—“the place the vents needs to be, the road, the minimize”—that’s often the protect of significant Styleforum posters. 

In a shock act of trend kismet, Nighy’s press run coincides with a surge of curiosity in traditional tailoring tied to a different occasion altogether: The coronation of King Charles, whose winding street to the throne culminates at Westminster Abbey this Saturday. Confronted with the prospect of going toe-to-toe with the would-be menswear king, most people would pack up their brogues and name it quits. However Nighy has risen to the event with elan, cementing his fame as certainly one of our premier suit-wearers within the course of. 

Whereas his royal peer gears as much as declare the crown, the actor has quietly made the case for his personal moodboard sovereignty, popping up in more and more surprising locations in fits so beautiful they’d make the Duke of Cornwall blush. On the Met Gala on Monday night, he linked arms with the belle of the ball herself within the finest outfit of the night time: a mushy navy go well with, crisp white shirt, dimpled silk tie, and durable black derbies. On the Higher East Facet the following day, he answered this poor fella’s query in impeccable type sporting a navy blazer, foulard tie, cuffed grey slacks, and dressy brown loafers. In March, he yakked it up with the speaking heads at BBC Radio in a pointy two-piecer and a single-breasted topcoat. In February, he ditched the blue go well with for a shadow-plaid grey quantity and a well-recognized patterned tie. 

Like King Charles, Nighy is a persistent outfit-repeater, not often deviating from a uniform of discreet soft-shouldered fits, crisp point-collar shirts, and smart gown footwear, accessorized with nothing apart from a thicket of silver hair and his signature blocky frames. (He could also be a purist, however we haven’t clocked a single foppish pocket sq. but.) Not like the elder Windsor, although, who favors tweedy glen-plaids and rakish peak lapels, Nighy’s tailoring skews smooth, mod, and startlingly cool—his jackets are minimize barely longer within the skirt, his trousers fall with simply the barest trace of break, and he wears them each with an unmediated ease greener stars wrestle to approximate. 

It’s not simply that he seems incredible; it’s that one way or the other, inexplicably, he’s managed to do it whereas browsing a serious shift within the trend zeitgeist and is, to borrow an business time period, completely crushing it. As menswear’s wild-style period offers option to a brand new sense of class, Nighy’s explicit model of docent swagger feels oddly prescient. His look isn’t actually a rallying cry for the reject modernity crowd—it’s a testomony to the facility of dialing-in your fashion so fully that getting dressed each morning turns into as seamless as slipping in your favourite Lobbs. In his closet, the go well with may be very a lot alive—lengthy could it reign.