This Autumn, Be Tahar Rahim at a Louis Vuitton Show

This Autumn, Be This Man

Big coats, big shirts, big mood for Tahar Rahim

tahar rahim louis vuitton ss22 show
Pascal Le Segretain

There are all sorts of unspoken rules at a fashion show. You arrive early, and wait patiently, knowing full well that it'll start late. You return a small, timid wave across the hall to someone who once drunkenly ashed a lively cigarette all over your front. And, if you're a Very Famous Person who is there to turn up the wattage – 'a friend of the brand', if you will – you're dressed head-to-toe in the brand of performance. It's just what you do. If you don't, people will get upset. Hell hath no fury like a fashion PR scorned.

tahar rahim louis vuitton ss22 show
Louis Vuitton’s creative director Nicolas Ghesquière, left, and Tahar Rahim in a very, very nice overcoat
Pascal Le Segretain

So what happens, then, if you're a man at a women's show? You follow Tahar Rahim's lead. The Mauritanian actor enlisted the menswear side of Louis Vuitton at the brand's most recent womenswear show, and, smartly, went classic and slightly quiet as to not detract from the clean, retrofuturist approach of creative director Nicolas Ghesquière.

It's doubly effective. Because the 40-year-old also etched a blueprint of autumnal dressing that works just as well beyond the gilded front rows of fashion week as it does within its velvet roped seating plan. In a semi-post-Covid age (or, perhaps, in the calm before another storm), this is how you get dressed up.

Quietly. There's an overcoat; the sort of languid, soft-shouldered overcoat that should really be kept in dry cleaning plastic in summer. There's a pair of loose, slightly rakish trousers; another sign that we're (thankfully) moving away from skinny legs and thigh chokers. There are loafers, the best sort of shoe for going in-between dress codes; the slip-on that says "Oh these? Had 'em ages mate." All of which is fairly classic stuff. But look to the shirt, and here's your point of difference. There's an asymmetric placket that, normally, could look all sorts of Pirates of the Caribbean 2062. In reality, it's a nice bit of weird that's placated with a neutral colour palette.

The secret to getting dressed up (and looking good while doing it) is to not appear as if you've spent ages getting dressed up. It's not Rahim's first rodeo either. Exactly a year ago to the day, The Serpent frontman went for a hulking, mafioso, bank heist overcoat at a Paco Rabanne show. That's another big, big way to do Autumn. But for outdressing those that once wronged you with overexcited gesticulations and rogue cig ash, Rahim's current iteration is your shiny place.

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