Robert Pattinson Busted Out a Skirt for the Dior Show

Robert Pattinson is plenty adventurous. For his most recent run of public outings, to promote The Batman, he broke out massive coats that cloaked his lithe frame, Dark Knight-style, and he even made a case for XXL cargo shorts.  (You could say the adventures started with his March 2022 GQ cover, which involved a full-on dye-and-grills transformation.) 

Now the British star has taken things up another level. Attending the Dior show in Paris (he’s an ambassador for the brand) he stole the gazes of fashion editors, TikTokers, and the 16th arrondissement’s top spenders alike when he turned up in a fuzzy chocolate-brown fleece and a blue tweed skirt. Or, uh, shorts and a skirt frontage (call it a skort?). It was one of the boldest garments he’s worn to date—no small claim when it comes to Pattinson.

Now, while this might be his first time in a skirt, Pattinson isn’t the first male celebrity to get to grips with the leg-flashing garment historically associated with womenswear. Kurt Cobain was at it in the ‘90s, and Vin Diesel sported a leather skirt to the MTV Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh in 2003 (Google it!). And it seems increasingly clear that we’ve entered a new era for the dude skirt. Pete Davidson is one of those guys, sporting one to the Met Gala. A$AP Rocky gets his from Givenchy. Oscar Isaac is an advocate for a pleated Thom Browne number, while Kid Cudi got Twitter talking when he turned up to a New York City gallery opening in a black chiffon skirt.

The skirt is now speaking to a lot more men, and in ways that feel almost—refreshingly—mundane. Take, for instance, the men’s Autumn/Winter 2023 shows currently taking place in Europe. Skirts are the running thread. Martine Rose set the wheels in motion when she guest-closed Pitti Uomo with a catwalk collection brimming with men in denim, floor-length skirts. British designer Charles Jeffrey Loverboy sent male models walking in tartan kilts and wraparound felt skirts. Etro showed long-length tartan skirts with oversized rugby shirts, while at Gucci (which has been pushing skirts and gowns for men since 2015) side-split skirts were worn with polo shirts. And indeed, Pattinson’s skirt is a carbon copy of one of the pieces seen on the Dior catwalk—Kim Jones sent more than ten of his models strutting down the catwalk in them.

Which makes this much clear: cool as it is, Pattinson in a skirt isn’t even that big a deal.

This story originally ran on British GQ with the title “Rob Pattinson, in a skirt, gives absolutely zero fucks”