The final furlong of a long season of campaigning, the Oscars are where actors are asked to make a style choice: go big or go classic. Faced with the pressure of history’s watchful eyes, the latter tends to win out. Case in point: Cillian Murphy’s simple yet elegant Versace tuxe and Oppenheimer tribute brooch, which he wore to collect the best actor statue last night.
For Messi the dog, the breakout star of the much memed Anatomy of a Fall, he managed to go both big and classic, wearing an oversized bowtie to the ceremony where he was shown urinating on Matt Damon’s Walk of Fame star.
The bowtie has been undergoing something of a reappraisal on red carpets lately, with actors from Paul Mescal to Cillian Murphy wearing floppy ribbon ties in a fun twist on the menswear classic, to Phoebe Waller-Bridge wearing a bowtie neck dress to GQ Men of the Year. The bowtie is no longer masculine or feminine. Now, it's no longer even human. Last year, host Jimmy Kimmel brought out a bad double body of The Banshees of Inisherin's Jenny the Donkey wearing a red bowtie.
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Messi's giant neckpiece is surprisingly in-step with the big menswear trends. It's big, and it plays with proportions. Back in January, Colman Domingo wore a large satin bowtie to the Governer’s Ball, shooing away the idea that big is always bad, and Kimmel's bowtie last night was also sizeable and punchy. Meanwhile, the slimline bowtie has popped up on the necks of the likes of Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler recently.
Messi's extra large bowtie, worn without a suit, feels as surrealist and experimental as Anatomy of a Fall – asking us to question if what we are seeing with our own eyes is real and the nature of truth itself. Messi's Snoop is, after all, the only one who was in the chalet that day and knows what really happened.
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In a recent interview with GQ, Messi’s trainer talked about how he had spent years going for roles but was a “misunderstood artist” despite being “the quiet force”. At the ceremony last night, cutting the ribbon on a trend that will surely be seen at weddings the world over this summer, Messi cemented his place in red carpet style history. As for where we can expect to see him next, he may have signed a role in a new French series, though details are murky.
Truthers have pointed out that the dog was not actually in attendance but his appearance in the show – during which Ryan Gosling can be seen giving Messi and his bowtie a wistful look as he claps along – were pre-recorded. But what is more A-list than not even having to sit through the Oscars ceremony? Instead going home for an early night, hanging up your giant bowtie after being at the epicentre of every single joke. Messi just took a bow.
