Austin Butler Is Leading the Cropped Suit Revolution

Austin Butler has a knack for letting his work bleed into his real life. After Elvis, Butler famously couldn’t stop using the King’s voice; from The Bikeriders, he gained an affinity for well-loved leather jackets. So what, pray tell, did the Oscar nominee take away from his role in Dune: Part Two? Based on his sharp look at the film’s New York City premiere yesterday, Butler’s drawing inspiration these days from the black-and-white motif of his character Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen’s home planet Giedi Prime.

At Lincoln Center on Sunday, Butler sported a custom, Oreo-toned ensemble by Haider Ackermann (his Dune costar Timothée Chalamet’s fashion BFF), featuring a notably cropped white suit jacket. Unlike, say, one of Thom Browne’s iconic shrunken suits—which are designed with proportionally shorter jackets and pants—Butler’s waist-grazing jacket was the only element of his look to be truncated. Paired with his high-waisted black pants, it had the effect of visually lengthening his physique—a trick employed by a legion of crop-top-donning fellas on TikTok.

Butler wasn’t the only star to wade in the cropped suit waters this weekend, either. At the Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday, Beef’s Steven Yeun and All of Us Strangers’ Andrew Scott both nabbed wins in crisp double-breasted numbers with similarly shortened jackets—the former in a quiet washed navy, the latter in a vibrant pastel yellow.

Michael Buckner / Getty Images

But the most drastic crop of the weekend took place at the SAG awards, where Abbott Elementary star Chris Perfetti rocked a flashy tan tuxedo with a hemline that hit way above his bellybutton. While this look might not be for the faint of heart, Perfetti has established himself lately as one of the most exciting new standouts on the red carpet.

We’ve been keeping an eye on the crop top trend for a few years now—and, in fact, predicted last month that it would explode in 2024—but this explosion of midriff-gracing tailoring feels like a new development entirely. We’d still recommend a longer jacket for most occasions, but if you happen to have a red carpet to stunt on in your immediate future, the cropped suit might just be a bold move worth exploring.