and a pointy white collared shirt. It was super ’70s, with Stanfield’s belted waist and broad shoulders and dagger-point collar. But it was also titillatingly fluid. Kinda racy. Very sexy. He looked hot, weird, and charismatic. Up for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Judas and the Black Messiah, he looked like an artist. He also just looked awesome. It was like a treatise on the greater state of men’s style: this is what’s going on here, now.

If past genderfluid styles have been gauntlet-throwing statements of glamour, like Billy Porter’s velvet tuxedo gown in 2019, Stanfield’s was subtler, which is a nice reading of the room, but it was also a more provocative use of fashion. “I wanted to express who he is as a person: someone who is equally thoughtful as he is playful,” his stylist, Julie Ragolia, explained in a text message. Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello’s Spring 2021 women’s collection “stayed with me,” she said, and they decided to adapt a piece from it, a lean jumpsuit that recalls the eponymous designer’s fondness for safari jackets, for Stanfield: “In thinking of a way to balance the formality of such a show, this special nomination for LaKeith, and the seriousness of the times we are all living in, coming to such a look just felt thoughtful, while still being celebratory.” Ragolia also noted that the look was made with sustainable materials.

It was also a nice new chapter in the fashion history books, like an easter egg for the growing body of amateur social media fashion historians watching at home. Genderfluid style derived from women’s shapes is the way of the moment. But it’s not quite as new as it can often seem: Yves Saint Laurent’s most famous look, his famous “Le Smoking” look, was a men’s tuxedo adapted for the women’s runway. Stanfield’s look was like a reverse Le Smoking—sampling from the sampled. He sold the tuxedo back to men as a tool of feminine empowerment. Or, maybe even better, as a garment shot through with a feminine kind of sex appeal: “go ahead and look, baby,” his outfit seems to say.

But even without that little bit of history, the sexy mandate was clear. Before I recognized the women’s look, I thought Stanfield sort of looked like a combination of Brad Pitt and his date, Gwyneth Paltrow, circa 1996: Pitt’s sleazy unbuttoned look smashed up with Paltrow’s tossed-on white chiffon tank dress. Stanfield clearly doesn’t have an actor’s insecurity, at least when it comes to fashion. The menswear revolution happening on runways, in the music industry, and in men’s wardrobes has been slow to come to the red carpet. But Stanfield assures us that at least a few among its ranks have clocked what’s going on.