Billy Porter is an actor and singer and if you don’t know him right now, you’d better get to know him, because he’s the guy with the cojones to turn up to the Oscars in a tuxedo dress.
Starring in_Pose,_a TV series about the drag scene of the late 1980s created by American Crime Story’s Ryan Murphy and Gwyneth Paltrow’s husband Brad Falchuk, Billy got an invite to the Oscars by virtue of being a red carpet presenter. And boy, did he turn up to the Oscars, entirely unworried about stealing the show. Wearing a monochrome velvet tux-gown by by Christian Siriano, he looked utterly regal, with his big frilly cuffs and huge pluming skirt offsetting the (apparent) masculinity of his bow tie.
What a wonderful time of menswear we’re living in, where Timothée Chalamet’s floral designs adorn him like flowers of paradise, and Ezra Miller can turn up to an awards ceremony dressed like a GCSE art project based on the dual concepts of ‘crows’ and ‘David Blaine’ and no-one will tell him to his face how ridiculous it all is, and Mahershala Ali, winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, can pay tribute to his Muslim faith and Malcolm X, a leader in the civil rights fight for racial equality in America, with a simple beanie resembling a Kufi hat, worn by Muslim men the world over. Billy’s pushed the agenda on, ensuring that the world knows just how incredible a man can look in a dress.
Oh, and if it strikes you as weird, for any reason, that the world celebrates a man in a dress way more than anyone would celebrate, say, Awkwafina or Amy Poehler in trousersuits, well, we’ll leave you with Billy’s words on that: ‘Women show up every day in pants, but the minute a man wears a dress, the seas part,’ he told Vogue, adding ‘I believe men on the red carpet would love to play more.’
‘This industry masquerades itself as inclusive, but actors are afraid to play, because if they show up as something outside of the status quo, they might be received as feminine, and, as a result, they won’t get that masculine job, that superhero job. And that’s the truth. I’ve been confronted with that.