Paul Mescal Is GQ’s Most Stylish Person of 2024
Style“It hasn’t been a conscious trendsetting of the shorts and the sneakers,” says the Gladiator II star, who nonetheless has firmly established himself as a menswear icon of the people.By Eileen CartterDecember 6, 2024Photos: TheImageDirect.com, Getty Images, Backgrid; Collage: Armando ZaragozaSave this storySaveSave this storySaveWelcome to the 2024 GQ Fashion Awards. Click here to see the rest of this year’s honorees.Paul Mescal finds the idea of anyone wanting to dress like him very confusing. “That’s just mad,” the actor tells GQ. “It hasn’t been a conscious trendsetting of the shorts and the sneakers, it’s just something that I’ve been comfortable wearing long before anybody’s been taking pictures of me walking on the street.”Perhaps you’ve seen them out and about—the laddish Paul clones in their short shorts and Adidas trainers, at an airport, at the gym, in line at a fast-casual salad chain. In Mescal’s recent GQ cover story, the actor played writer Gabriella Paiella a teasing phone voice memo from his younger sister Nell, a singer-songwriter with a knowing internet presence, who remarked on seeing these freewheelin’ fellas around the British capital. “The shorts epidemic that you’ve caused…” she joked. “Too many men in London acting the bollocks.” Incidentally or not, the Gladiator II star has become one of the most influential dressers in Hollywood—and our pick for most stylish person of the year.Courtesy of TheImageDirect.comEver since Mescal and his “Connell chain” first graced our screens in Hulu’s 2020 adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, the Irishman has been as heralded for his acting chops as for his refreshingly regular off-duty wardrobe of hand-cropped tees, just-snug-enough denim, fraying Carhartt jackets, and, most crucially, quad-baring short shorts. (The actor himself remembers the exact outfit that broke the gammy dam: vintage windbreaker, O’Neills shorts, and Stan Smiths, with a bottle of Crabbie’s alcoholic ginger beer and some prawn-flavored Lay’s in hand.)But even if Mescal’s sporty shorts—a relic of the actor’s previous career as a competitive Gaelic football player—lured the stans in, it was the floppy, fashion-forward suits he began wearing to red-carpeted events that kept everyone hooked. We took notice of his charmingly dirtbaggish fashion mullet and double-breasted jackets, as well as his new habit of layering those laidback suits over ribbed undershirts. (It was a welcome coincidence that Mescal happened to be playing the Marlon Brando role—albeit sans Brando’s famous white tank—in a West End production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire during that same time.) By late 2022, and rolling into what would become Mescal’s first big-league awards campaign around his role in the Charlotte Wells drama Aftersun, he and stylist Felicity Kay, who also dresses stylish ascendants like Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa and Heartstopper’s Kit Connor, turned out a run of heaters. He wore a sheer, pearl-festooned jacket by Irish designer Simone Rocha to the 2023 SAGs; a groovy Giuliva Heritage suit on Late Night With Seth Meyers; a killer Gucci ivory double-breasted tuxedo jacket to that year’s Oscars. Each look—like all of Mescal’s onscreen roles—felt coolly masculine, yet soft around the edges. Red-carpet formalwear had grown shaggier and stranger since the pandemic, and Mescal managed to make the whole charade seem sexy again.Getty ImagesGetty ImagesMeanwhile, Mescal’s off-the-carpet wardrobe elevated him into an internet boyfriend, mostly by virtue of him continuing to dress like Some Guy You Know. He was a scruffy heartthrob who wore great blue jeans and teensy T-shirts and niche outerwear and normie trainers, plus the occasional merch to reflect his fondness for poetically online musicians such as Mitski and Clairo. (He also dated stars from this dulcet milieu: previously, Phoebe Bridgers; currently, Gracie Abrams.)And yes, he was still wearing short shorts—and thanks to a shiny contract he inked with Gucci last year, he was even getting paid for it. “I’m a fan of the short inseam,” Mescal told my colleague Samuel Hine at this summer’s Gucci menswear show, to which the actor wore a pair of glorified cotton boxers with the Italian luxury house’s horsebit loafers. “I’m a big advocate for men wearing shorter shorts.” His most memorable outfit this year was a post-workout ensemble—generously cropped hoodie, micro shorts, wired headphones—worn during an evening Sweetgreen run in Manhattan. (Look ma, a meme!) Not without Mescal’s influence, short shorts became the menswear trend of the summer. To close the loop on the whole shorts discourse, GQ recently gifted Mescal a pair of customized O’Neills Gaelic football shorts to celebrate his most-stylish win.Photo: Krista Schlueter for GQPhoto: Krista Schlueter for GQIndeed, Mescal’s “indie boy charm,” as one TikToker termed it, invites a sense of accessibility. (Anecdotally, on more than one occasion, a straight man in my life has
Welcome to the 2024 GQ Fashion Awards. Click here to see the rest of this year’s honorees.
Paul Mescal finds the idea of anyone wanting to dress like him very confusing. “That’s just mad,” the actor tells GQ. “It hasn’t been a conscious trendsetting of the shorts and the sneakers, it’s just something that I’ve been comfortable wearing long before anybody’s been taking pictures of me walking on the street.”
Perhaps you’ve seen them out and about—the laddish Paul clones in their short shorts and Adidas trainers, at an airport, at the gym, in line at a fast-casual salad chain. In Mescal’s recent GQ cover story, the actor played writer Gabriella Paiella a teasing phone voice memo from his younger sister Nell, a singer-songwriter with a knowing internet presence, who remarked on seeing these freewheelin’ fellas around the British capital. “The shorts epidemic that you’ve caused…” she joked. “Too many men in London acting the bollocks.” Incidentally or not, the Gladiator II star has become one of the most influential dressers in Hollywood—and our pick for most stylish person of the year..jpg)
Ever since Mescal and his “Connell chain” first graced our screens in Hulu’s 2020 adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, the Irishman has been as heralded for his acting chops as for his refreshingly regular off-duty wardrobe of hand-cropped tees, just-snug-enough denim, fraying Carhartt jackets, and, most crucially, quad-baring short shorts. (The actor himself remembers the exact outfit that broke the gammy dam: vintage windbreaker, O’Neills shorts, and Stan Smiths, with a bottle of Crabbie’s alcoholic ginger beer and some prawn-flavored Lay’s in hand.)
But even if Mescal’s sporty shorts—a relic of the actor’s previous career as a competitive Gaelic football player—lured the stans in, it was the floppy, fashion-forward suits he began wearing to red-carpeted events that kept everyone hooked. We took notice of his charmingly dirtbaggish fashion mullet and double-breasted jackets, as well as his new habit of layering those laidback suits over ribbed undershirts. (It was a welcome coincidence that Mescal happened to be playing the Marlon Brando role—albeit sans Brando’s famous white tank—in a West End production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire during that same time.) By late 2022, and rolling into what would become Mescal’s first big-league awards campaign around his role in the Charlotte Wells drama Aftersun, he and stylist Felicity Kay, who also dresses stylish ascendants like Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa and Heartstopper’s Kit Connor, turned out a run of heaters. He wore a sheer, pearl-festooned jacket by Irish designer Simone Rocha to the 2023 SAGs; a groovy Giuliva Heritage suit on Late Night With Seth Meyers; a killer Gucci ivory double-breasted tuxedo jacket to that year’s Oscars. Each look—like all of Mescal’s onscreen roles—felt coolly masculine, yet soft around the edges. Red-carpet formalwear had grown shaggier and stranger since the pandemic, and Mescal managed to make the whole charade seem sexy again.
Meanwhile, Mescal’s off-the-carpet wardrobe elevated him into an internet boyfriend, mostly by virtue of him continuing to dress like Some Guy You Know. He was a scruffy heartthrob who wore great blue jeans and teensy T-shirts and niche outerwear and normie trainers, plus the occasional merch to reflect his fondness for poetically online musicians such as Mitski and Clairo. (He also dated stars from this dulcet milieu: previously, Phoebe Bridgers; currently, Gracie Abrams.)
And yes, he was still wearing short shorts—and thanks to a shiny contract he inked with Gucci last year, he was even getting paid for it. “I’m a fan of the short inseam,” Mescal told my colleague Samuel Hine at this summer’s Gucci menswear show, to which the actor wore a pair of glorified cotton boxers with the Italian luxury house’s horsebit loafers. “I’m a big advocate for men wearing shorter shorts.” His most memorable outfit this year was a post-workout ensemble—generously cropped hoodie, micro shorts, wired headphones—worn during an evening Sweetgreen run in Manhattan. (Look ma, a meme!) Not without Mescal’s influence, short shorts became the menswear trend of the summer. To close the loop on the whole shorts discourse, GQ recently gifted Mescal a pair of customized O’Neills Gaelic football shorts to celebrate his most-stylish win.
Indeed, Mescal’s “indie boy charm,” as one TikToker termed it, invites a sense of accessibility. (Anecdotally, on more than one occasion, a straight man in my life has observed an outfit of Mescal’s, shorts or otherwise, and determined, “Hey, I would like to dress like that.”) Paul Mescal is not a fashion menace like Timothée Chalamet, nor is he a label buff like Kendrick Lamar. Rather, the actor became a style icon by wearing normal clothes especially well—much like his Hollywood peers Jeremy Allen White and Jacob Elordi, who are also beloved by TikTok menswear heads for dressing simply in vintage tees, well-fitting jeans, easygoing accessories, and covetable outerwear, be it a hardy work jacket or Gere-esque overcoat. (It helps, of course, that all of these items drape particularly well across their professionally jacked frames.) If you’re a style-curious dude who wants to dip a not-yet-Tabi-socked toe into menswear, starting out where the water is warm—sporty, retro, casual—is just fine.
During the promotional tour for Mescal’s decidedly manly turn in Gladiator II, the actor and Kay leaned into an approachable femininity, opting for tiny buttoned-up cardigans, delicate jewelry, and more drapey silhouettes by his go-to designers: a ribbon-collared Gucci suit at the London premiere; a rose-embellished Simone Rocha jacket on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert; a hand-painted silk henley by BW Marks for a press event in Sydney. In his free time, Mescal has also become an avid vintage shopper; sometimes, he’ll get shirts tailored to be as cropped as he likes.
“In the world of Hollywood, pretty much everybody has a stylist,” says Mescal, “so I think [for] the actors or the people in the public eye that I’m drawn to, it’s not necessarily the clothes—it’s the fact that they look like they’re wearing the clothes and it’s not the clothes wearing them.”
A standard-enough style adage, but one that Mescal has managed to conquer. “I think it’s very easy to lose your sense of identity broadly in this industry,” he adds, “so wherever you can find your own stamp, be that in clothes—be that in like, anything—I’m all for it.”
Katie Philo contributed reporting. A version of this story originally appeared in the 2024 GQ Men of the Year issue with the title “Most Stylish Person of the Year: Paul Mescal.”
