Harry Styles & Timotheé Chalamet Walked So Kit Connor Could Run

Blame algorithms, blame Gen-Z’s obsession with “authenticity,” blame the fact that the world increasingly resembles an AI-generated version of Van Eyck’s “The Last Judgement,” but there are extremely few young celebrities people actually care about anymore–stars who simply have to show up somewhere and remain sentient for people to want to read an article about it. The floppy-haired, unsettlingly toned exception to this rule? Kit Connor.

Good thing, then, that the Heartstopper star popped up to pose for paps outside Loewe’s fall 2024 menswear show in Paris today—not an unexpected turn of events, given that a) Connor is a friend of Jonathan Anderson and b) that is 90 per cent of what people do at fashion week–but still, his appearance was met with many animated social media posts touching on such matters as “his leather trench!”, “his Argyle knit!!”, and–most pressingly–“his face!!!!”

Hormone-induced TikTok hysteria aside, Connor’s relationship with Anderson is probably the most promising menswear alliance since Timothée met Haider or Harry met Alessandro. If the Netflix viewing public fell in love with Kit in a Truham Grammar High School uniform, fashion really sat up and took notice of him when he began eschewing nondescript suiting for–forgive me, but there’s no other word–looks on the red carpet, almost all of them masterminded by the Loewe and JW Anderson creative director.

There was a skintight T-shirt emblazoned with a Michael Clark-inspired print during London Fashion Week last February; a shimmering periwinkle polo at Vogue World: London that felt a little bit dad-with-a-lifelong-Wentworth-membership, a little bit Elton John; and a pale citron hammered silk jacket with a Bradshaw-esque corsage at the Fashion Awards in December.

For his part, Connor told Vogue in a 2023 profile that his fashion icons were James Dean, Marlon Brando and Paul Newman–although he’s clearly not afraid to stray from the all-American style template that that implies. (Hard to imagine Brando getting much mileage out of the cardigan that Kit slipped into today.) Of course, there’s a time and a place for classic tuxes and muscle T-shirts, vintage 501s and moiré braces–but right now, Connor’s best move might simply be dressing like no one but himself.