Balenciaga had the Duchess of Sussex on its front row in Paris; Dolce & Gabbana bagged Meryl Streep camping it up as editrix Miranda Priestly. But it is a late entry that surely wins the most braggable surprise celebrity get of fashion month. The heritage British knitwear label John Smedley has revealed its new face and it is — drum roll — Bill Nighy.
National treasure alert! As beloved Brits go, Mr — note: not Sir; he turned down his 2003 offer of knighthood — Nighy is up there. There is a reason the 75-year-old is considered precious cargo to a broad church of generations. He’s an old school blend of our most exportable brand of Britishness: unassumingly charming, a bit cheeky and — yes — effortlessly cool.
Men and women of all ages admire his style. His signature look, built on the back of bespoke Savile Row suiting, is impeccable. Then there is his well-recorded proximity to the most severe taste arbiter of all, Anna Wintour, which only adds to his sartorial clout and, ooh, mystique.
The pair, who have graced Met Ball and film screening red carpets as well as the front row at catwalk shows together, have never been confirmed as romantically intertwined. That doesn’t stop the rest of us from thinking it could happen.
Nighy with Anna Wintour at London Fashion Week
ALAMY
Did Wintour — the ultimate high fashion matchmaker — fix Nighy up with Smedley? She’s certainly a supporter of the new collection he has designed for the label, demonstrated by the fact that she quietly worked a navy cardie from it at a dinner over London Fashion Week.
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The £270 knit doesn’t even hit stores until next week. Wintour is not one to degrade herself by taking mirror selfies and announcing what — or rather, who — she is wearing to her followers. But it would not be a leap to assume that details of who designed that item were carefully seeded around the Ritz’s private dining room over the course of the evening.
If not, they caught up on it the morning after. Wintour let Smedley post a picture of her on Instagram. Such promotion is really not her bag, so there can truly be no greater proof of her loyalty to Nighy.
Back to him, and the clothes. They are the sort of clean, timeless garb that Nighy is known for. The capsule of waistcoats, cardies and crewnecks could be cornerstones of any wardrobe, though I’d like to know how often the Bafta winner wears £450 cashmere long johns at home.
He’s not modelling those in any of the campaign pictures (shame!) but does a nice job working everything else with a sparkly-eyed, knowing smile. My husband, who not long ago chased Nighy down for a selfie in Soho and found him to be incredibly obliging, would buy his sweaters. So would our dads.
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Hipster youths might not have Smedley cash to spend —this collection starts at £200 — but they work versions of Nighy’s gentlemanly look all over TikTok already. With respect, they call the aesthetic grandpa-core. Nighy’s look does hark back to a bygone, better-dressed era. He once told GQ how much he misses the time before trackies, when suits and ties were a daily vibe.
In a release from the brand, he explains that he wore John Smedley polo shirts as an early mod in the Sixties and Seventies, “in frontline defiance of the silk shirt open to the third button or the tie-dye T-shirts doused in patchouli oil”.
Such delightful banter is what really makes our Bill so bankable. The man needs neither a nod from a luxury fashion label nor an are-they-aren’t-they relationship with the queen of Condé Nast to confirm that he is, plainly, just terribly cool.