It seems like not long ago that the fashion conversation around Pete Davidson was exclusively about how a guy who couldn’t stop wearing camo Bape shorts was killing it on the
dating scene. At least part of that sentence has changed. Imagine telling this to someone back then: Pete Davidson arrived on the red carpet of the White House Correspondents’ dinner dressed in a suit, arm-in-arm with new girlfriend Kim Kardashian. Delightfully, the most unexpected part of that sentence might still be “dressed in a suit.”
Any time Davidson appears in a suit, it’s kind of a big deal. After all, the comedian is still most comfortable rocking sandwich-shop merch on date night. Davidson’s choice Saturday night was even more surprising because of the type of suit he wore: Unlike most of the suits our most fashionable stars have been reaching for lately, Davidson went skinny. Even the thin tie evokes some nostalgia for when the skinny suit first arrived on the scene, courtesy of then-Dior designer Hedi Slimane and his rock n’ roll-inspired looks. While in recent years the skinny suit has given way to slouchy Armani and purposefully Bad Suits, Pete reminds us that sometimes a slick, slim black number is exactly what’s called for.
This is still Davidson, though, and he managed to bring a few of his own style touches to his standard black suit. The sunglasses are a celebrity power move—a nice reminder that he doesn’t necessarily belong among the politicos and wonky press corps filling this event out. And Davidson apparently knows what Frank Ocean learned long ago: always wear Vans to events with the president.
Recently, Davidson has been putting down the deli merch and reaching for the suit more often. Whether that’s just part of growing up or the Kim Kardashian effect, we hope the trend continues.