From George Clooney’s timeless black tie to Brooklyn Beckham’s Dior tailoring and John Malkovich’s extraordinary take on the modern dandy, Venice is reminding men that dressing well is about personality, proportion and confidence.
The Venice Film Festival has always been about more than cinema. For menswear, the arrival by water taxi, daytime photocalls and evening red carpets create one of the best showcases of how men can actually wear luxury fashion.
And Venice 2026 is particularly interesting.
We are not seeing men covered in logos or desperately trying to look twenty years younger. Instead, the strongest looks are about tailoring, wider proportions, old-school glamour and eccentric details.
George Clooney has demonstrated why traditional black tie never dies. Brooklyn Beckham has taken the same basic formula in a younger direction. Robert Pattinson has thrown out the black tuxedo altogether. And then there is John Malkovich, who arrived in Dior looking somewhere between an Elizabethan aristocrat and a 21st-century fashion obsessive.
Dior, now under Jonathan Anderson, has become one of the major menswear stories of Venice. The designer has openly talked about developing a new vocabulary for Dior menswear, mixing historical references with clothes that can still feel contemporary. Venice is proving that the strategy works exceptionally well on men of very different ages.
So what can normal men actually learn from all this?
Here are my five biggest men’s style trends from the Venice Film Festival 2026 so far.
1. The Proper Tuxedo Is Back – George Clooney Shows Why
Sometimes fashion spends so much time trying to reinvent menswear that we forget how incredibly good the classics already are.
George Clooney arrived at the opening-night Ink premiere in a traditional black Giorgio Armani tuxedo, white shirt and black bow tie. It was also the evening on which Clooney received his Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
There was no gimmick.
No enormous brooch.
No see-through shirt.
No pair of trainers desperately attempting to make formalwear look youthful.
And he looked superb.
This is an important menswear lesson.
When you are wearing black tie, the cut becomes the fashion.
The shoulder has to sit correctly. The jacket needs to follow the body without strangling it. The trouser needs sufficient length and movement. And your shirt needs to look brilliantly white.
Clooney also demonstrated something increasingly important in men’s fashion: dress your age without dressing old.
At 65, he doesn’t need to dress like a TikTok influencer. His attraction comes partly from looking completely comfortable in what he wears.
Earlier in Venice he was photographed arriving by water taxi in a blue suit with an open white shirt and sunglasses – another extraordinarily simple combination that worked because the proportions and attitude were right.
The Venice lesson:
Invest in one exceptional tuxedo rather than five fashionable suits.
A beautiful black tuxedo can last twenty years.
2. The Younger Tuxedo – Brooklyn Beckham in Dior
Then we have Brooklyn Beckham.
Alongside Nicola Peltz Beckham at the Kinéo Awards, Brooklyn wore a custom black Dior tuxedo with satin peak lapels, polished Derby shoes and lightly tinted sunglasses. British Vogue described the shaggy-haired Beckham alongside Nicola’s dramatic purple Balenciaga couture gown.
This is essentially the same menswear language as Clooney – but translated for a 27-year-old.
And that is what makes the comparison interesting.
The young man does not need to destroy black tie to make it modern.
Brooklyn’s longer hair, glasses and slightly more relaxed attitude gave the traditional tuxedo a completely different energy.
It also proves something I constantly say about menswear:
Accessories can change the age of an outfit.
Take away the glasses, change the hair and add a conventional bow tie and Brooklyn suddenly looks far more traditional.
The tinted glasses gave him just enough rebellion.
And importantly, the clothes didn’t compete with Nicola’s spectacular violet gown. When accompanying somebody wearing major couture, sometimes the smartest menswear decision is knowing when not to compete.
The Venice lesson:
If you are younger, don’t reject formalwear. Personalise it.
Try interesting eyewear, jewellery, shoes or hair instead of ruining a beautiful suit with unnecessary tricks.
3. The Return of the Eccentric Dandy – John Malkovich in Dior
My favourite menswear development at Venice might belong to John Malkovich.
The 72-year-old actor appeared for the Wild Horse Nine premiere wearing Dior: a loose black wool peak-lapel suit with an off-white silk shirt featuring an enormous pleated, ruff-like collar. Vogue compared its theatrical quality to the aristocratic clothing associated with his Dangerous Liaisons era.
This is what celebrity menswear should be.
Malkovich isn’t trying to look young.
He isn’t trying to look conventionally handsome.
He is creating a character.
And Jonathan Anderson’s Dior is perfectly suited to him.
The oversized historical collar turns an otherwise relatively simple dark suit into something memorable. There are echoes of Elizabethan dress, costume, theatre and old European aristocracy – yet somehow it doesn’t look like fancy dress.
Why?
Because Malkovich owns it.
Before the premiere, he had already been experimenting with unusual clothing in Venice, including Bode trousers and mules. His red-carpet Dior therefore felt like a continuation of his personal style rather than something a stylist had suddenly forced onto him.
This is also good news for older men.
Fashion does not have to become more conservative as you age.
In fact, a man with silver hair, experience and confidence can often carry eccentric clothing far better than a 22-year-old model.
The Venice lesson:
Every man needs one theatrical element.
It might be a scarf.
A vintage brooch.
An unusual shirt.
Velvet loafers.
A dramatic coat.
You don’t need an entire outrageous outfit. One extraordinary detail is enough.
4. Black Tie Doesn’t Have to Be Black – Robert Pattinson in White Dior
Robert Pattinson delivered perhaps the strongest argument for abandoning the conventional black tuxedo.
For the Primetime premiere he wore a custom Dior double-breasted white pinstripe suit, styled with a striped tie and brown shoes. Vogue described the look as a modern interpretation of dandy dressing under Jonathan Anderson’s Dior.
This is a major menswear direction.
For years the red carpet has been dominated by black, midnight blue and the occasional cream dinner jacket.
Pattinson went much further.
Head-to-toe pale tailoring immediately makes a man visible amongst fifty black tuxedos.
But notice that the shape itself remains traditional.
Double-breasted jacket.
Proper trousers.
Tie.
Leather shoes.
This is how you experiment intelligently.
Change one major variable while keeping everything else controlled.
The colour is dramatic enough. Therefore the tailoring doesn’t need another ten styling tricks.
And the brown shoes are particularly important. Black shoes would have made the outfit much harsher. Brown gives white tailoring warmth and makes it feel slightly less ceremonial.
The Venice lesson:
For weddings, summer parties and destination events, start looking beyond navy and black.
Cream, stone, ivory, pale grey and chalk-striped tailoring can be exceptionally sophisticated – particularly in Italy.
5. Bigger Proportions, Scarves and Layering – Formalwear Gets Softer
The final trend is about volume.
The ultra-skinny suit is finished.
Thank goodness.
One of the most interesting Venice looks came from Jack O’Connell, who wore Dior Spring 2027: a grey tuxedo jacket layered with a long wool coat and a huge fringed scarf. The amount of clothing may have been questionable for hot Venice weather, but visually it demonstrated where menswear is going.
Elsewhere, Akinola Davies Jr. wore a black double-breasted Celine suit with broader shoulders and relaxed trousers, while Damian Hardung chose lightweight grey Armani tailoring.
The silhouette has changed.
Trousers are wider.
Jackets have room.
Shoulders are stronger.
Coats are longer.
Scarves are becoming enormous.
This doesn’t mean buying clothes two sizes too big.
There is a huge difference between oversized tailoring and badly fitting tailoring.
The waist, shoulder and length still need intention.
But after years of men squeezing themselves into tiny jackets and ankle-length trousers, this more generous silhouette feels luxurious again.
It also looks fantastic on older men.
Fabric needs room to move.
A beautifully cut wide trouser flowing as a man walks into a Venetian palazzo is far more elegant than trousers clinging to his calves.
The Venice lesson:
When buying your next suit, try the larger silhouette before automatically asking the tailor to make everything tighter.
There is another story running underneath all five trends: Jonathan Anderson’s Dior is becoming extremely important for menswear.
John Malkovich wore Dior.
Brooklyn Beckham wore Dior.
Robert Pattinson wore Dior.
Jack O’Connell wore Dior.
And yet none of them looked the same.
That is clever fashion.
Anderson’s menswear for Dior has deliberately played with historical menswear, unusual proportions, aristocratic references and unexpected combinations rather than simply reinventing the same skinny luxury suit. His earlier collections mixed things such as frock coats, Bar jackets, denim, cargo shapes and even hiking-inspired footwear.
Venice is now showing what happens when those ideas leave the runway and encounter real personalities.
Malkovich makes Dior theatrical.
Pattinson makes it rebellious.
Brooklyn makes it youthful.
O’Connell makes it romantic.
That is precisely what luxury menswear should do.
The MenStyleFashion Verdict
The biggest Venice Film Festival 2026 menswear trend isn’t actually a particular jacket, shoe or colour.
It is individuality within elegance.
George Clooney proves you don’t need to reinvent the tuxedo.
Brooklyn Beckham proves traditional tailoring doesn’t have to look middle-aged.
Robert Pattinson proves formalwear doesn’t have to be black.
John Malkovich proves older men can be the most adventurous dressers in the room.
And Dior proves that menswear becomes much more interesting when designers stop treating every man as if he wants to dress exactly the same.
For years, men’s red-carpet fashion seemed trapped between two extremes: painfully conservative black suits or attention-seeking outfits designed to generate social-media headlines.
Venice 2026 is offering something much better: men dressing like men, but having fun again.
And if there is one trend worth taking home from the Lido, it is this:
Buy the beautiful suit. Then find one detail that makes it unmistakably yours.
unmistakably yours.
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