'Awesome, the nineties is back!' shrieks every streetwear blogger. They're not wrong, but the sentiment is more old hat than bucket hat: it's been the case for a while now. And as a man who found mega-fame in that very era, Brad Pitt's nineties wardrobe is still a far better sight than any Soho trainer reseller.
That's because the 55-year-old sticks to the classic side of the decade. At the London premiere of Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood, Pitt channelled the film stars of pre-internet yore - when red carpets were one of the few windows in which to glimpse the goings on of Sunset Boulevard.
Pitt is ruler of this bygone era. He's got the clothes to prove it, too. Up-top, looser tailoring in the enduring shade of the Academy Awards pre-2000: black. Lots of it. But rather than stick to the conservative rigidity of red carpets, the Ad Astra star dressed it down with a knitted polo and just a hint of a silver chain.
But threads alone don't maketh retro Instagram fodder. The goatee, mid-length hair and permashades (long considered the Triple Entente of nineties grooming) are moves that, while difficult, work on a man that knows what works for him. While the rest of us went for lumbersexual lustre or clean-shaven youth, Pitt clung to the old faithful. It worked.
And this is what was great about the nineties. Not tracksuits, or the reverence of mediocre pop, or well-worn jokes of disbelief at the price of amphibian-centric confectionary. It's this: Brad Pitt dressing like it's 1999.
