At the London premiere of his new movie Pillion, Alexander Skarsgård asked an important question: Should men be doing more to show off their shoulders?
To that we say, why not? Every other muscle group has a spotlight. The biceps love to rippled inside a well-fitted suit jacket. Shorts do wonders to showcase lovingly defined calves and quads. An artfully unbuttoned shirt can allow for a peek at pecs and abs. But what about your shoulders and back? What are all those lateral raises and deadlifts for? Why are you sinking time into cable rowing and lat pull-downs? Just to be hidden away under sweaters and jackets, gone un-ogled? Skarsgård says no more.
On Saturday at the BFI London Film Festival, the Swedish actor pulled on a fit that highlighted the untapped and under-utilised potential of the shoulder. Wearing a look by French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Skarsgård wore a halterneck-style shirt (for dudes who have never tangled with such a term, that means the shirt goes up into a single strap that loops around the neck) with a tie. On the bottom were a pair of leather trousers with a lace fly and Jimmy Choo boots.
Kate Green/Getty Images
Kate Green/Getty Images
The whole thing is very much in the lane of Skarsgård’s Pillion press tour; it’s about BDSM and a gay relationship in a biker gang. His stylist, Harry Lambert, has been putting together fits to nod to that. Some are more subtle (a Saint Laurent thigh-high black leather boot at Cannes). Some are more overt (a vintage Jerks tee of a mustachioed man licking a boot). Others, like this one, are just plain sexy.
Sure, we could wax lyrical about the overt BDSM references. But what we really want to talk about are those shoulders. It’s a little unconventional, yeah, but a halterneck is the perfect piece to showcase one of our least appreciated muscles groups. And Skarsgård’s not alone. Timothée Chalamet famously wore one in Venice in 2022, courtesy of Haider Ackermann. Harry Styles donned a sheer blouse to the same effect at the 2019 Met Gala.
It’s one small step for Skarsgård, one giant leap for guys who bench press.
This story originally appeared on British GQ.