Alexander Skarsgård Showed Toe—And Flew Too Close to the Sun

On the beige, corporate-feeling red carpet at the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend, actor Alexander Skarsgård stood out not for his towering stature or overt flashes of kinkwear, the latter of which has become a bit of an expectation for the six-foot-four Swede’s press-tour style. Instead, the actor dizzyingly deployed a handful of trends in one overly mish-mashed outfit that also happened to be head-to-toe Valentino.

The actor, who was in town to promote his role in the upcoming Charli XCX mockumentary The Moment, wore look 16 from the label’s pre-fall collection: khakis and a mustard button-up fastened with a busy necktie that featured a pastel, chintzy-wallpaper-type floral print. (Rococo gaudiness is a sensibility the Italian brand’s current creative director, Alessandro Michele, weaves into his designs rather elegantly, usually to an indie-punk, borrowed-from-the-girls effect.) On top, he layered on not one but two of-the-moment jackets: a Marty Supreme windbreaker-esque track jacket and a khaki trench coat. Given that the intentionally cluttered look was a direct replica of Valentino’s editorial styling, the ensemble, perhaps counterintuitively, gave off a bit of an un-spontaneous, sponsored vibe. And amidst it all, our eyes were drawn lower.

But even this look’s punctuative pièce de résistance, which saw Skarsgård showing off his bare toes via a pair of Rockstud flip-flop sandals—a staple in any evil private school girl’s wardrobe, and an unseasonal continuation of last summer’s freakiest menswear trend—fell flat.

It is unusual for a cheeky, gender-borrowing look from Skarsgård to miss the mark for this writer. For me, many of his swings work: There was the ruby-red nail polish he rocked with a double-breasted tuxedo at the Governors Awards in November; the Ludovic de Saint Sernin halter top that showed off the actor’s trapezoids at the BFI London Film Festival in October; and, of course, the show-stopping, thigh-high Saint Laurent kinky boots that walked the Cannes red carpet last spring.

The Alexander Skarsgård press-dressing formula has been successful thus far in part because of the small yet potent details that disrupt the otherwise undisputed movie-star feel of his outfits. When you’re intimidatingly tall and handsome, wearing a flawless tuxedo and a pair of spanktastic thigh-grazing boots, you’re going to make heads turn and people chuckle. (Maybe you’ll get them to watch your BDSM biker movie.) But when every part of an outfit is a statement, even precious winks like bratty Rockstud flip-flops get lost in the shuffle.

If there is any piece of advice to offer here, it’s that Alexander might take a cue from Stellan Skarsgård—patriarch of the Skarsgård acting dynasty and Alexander’s “daddy”—who regularly exposes his chest on red carpets, giving spectators nothing but a peek, and thus keeping them hungry for more.