Last week, the 2025 Cannes Film Festival kicked off with a freshly reinforced dress code that stipulated, among other things, that “for decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet.” If you’d asked me then to forecast the prevailing fashion takeaways from this year’s seaside cinema extravaganza, I would have predicted the obvious: a sexless fashion event in France! Sacré bleu!
Cannes is famous for its high-glam red carpet, where the Riviera sunlight glints off highlighted collarbones and voluminous sequined gowns. There have even been sultry menswear moments in recent years, such as the 2023 premiere of Pedro Almodóvar’s short film Strange Way of Life, when the hunky cast of Spanish actors Jason Fernandez, Manu Ríos and Jose Condessa all managed to find suits that displayed some combination of bare chests and biceps. When I inquired with the Cannes press office about how the no-nudity policy would apply to men and their no-shirt suits—what would happen to all of those toned pectorals?—I received the same standard reply they’d already sent to other publications: “This year, the Cannes Film Festival has made explicit in its charter certain rules that have long been in effect,” the response read, adding, “The aim is not to regulate attire per se, but to prohibit full nudity on the red carpet, in accordance with the institutional framework of the event and French law.” (The Cannes press office did not respond to requests for clarification.)
Instead, for the last two weeks at Cannes, there was still sex, though it manifested in goofier, more meme-friendly forms. There was a bevy of handsome actors over the age of 40 to pick up the slack. The emerging menswear theme seemed to be, for lack of a better term, “fashion daddy.” Grown men took “fashion risks” calculated to titillate and/or swoon, or at least generate lots of posts. Was it lusty? Maybe, though not in the classic sense. Depends on what you’re into.
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