Ten Handsome Men (and One Dog): The Best-Dressed at the 2012 Golden Globes

Awards shows for creative showbiz types can be fertile ground for formal wear experimentation gone disastrously wrong. Watch the Tony Awards and you’ll see what I mean. Actors or the managers and designers dressing them inappropriately sense an opportunity to stand out and dare be different, which is never a good idea. No one, at least in our lifetime, is going to reinvent men’s formalwear. The guys I’ve included here (or the ones who told them what to wear) clearly understood the hard and fast absolute about the dinner jacket: don’t fuck with the tux.

At last night’s 69th Annual Golden Globes, these twelve men (and one dog) came to the red carpet doing it right. Most wore a classic peak lapel, but Jonah Hill and Bryan Cranston showed up looking extra handsome in notch lapel jackets. Brad Pitt was the only one of my picks who donned a vest, and pulled it off perfectly, correctly leaving the bottom button unfastened.

In terms of formalwear, we men have the blessing of limited options with a little room for play in lapels, vests, ties, studs and cufflinks. There is also a little breathing space in color.

Ten of the twelve kept it classic black, but George Clooney and host Ricky Gervais carefully thought outside the crayon box. Clooney went with a beautiful deep blue, which is well within bounds. Gervais took the biggest risk with a rich burgundy tux and a black shirt and no tie, which actually worked well for someone well-known to be as funny and as interesting as he.

I’ll leave the “worst-dressed” men to the snarks and bitches elsewhere. I’m keeping it positive here, arguing that each of these guys would still look good if they showed up at awards shows in the exact same well-tailored formals over the next twenty years.