Alexander Skarsgård and His Kinky Boots Are the Highlight of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival has produced no shortage of Fashion Moments™, from Rihanna's bump-baring Alaïa dress to Amal Clooney's Galliano-era Dior number. But, thanks to a last-minute dress code update that mandated no nudity (as well as no volume and no trains), the carpet has been devoid of, well, sex. Enter Alexander Skarsgård.
The Swedish actor has been anything but subtle in his Croisette looks. Skarsgård is paying homage to his film Pillion, in which he plays a biker who enters into a BDSM relationship with a shy young man (Harry Melling). For the photocall, Skarsgård more than nodded to the film's plot, wearing a white crewneck tee depicting a leather boot-clad foot hovering above a man's face, from South London store Jerks. Styled by Harry Lambert, he paired the archival BDSM shirt with a pair of leather Loewe pants and black biker boots—not dissimilar to the pair pictured on his tee.
Dominique Charriau
PascalBut that wasn't the end of Skarsgård's kinky boots. No, no, no—the actor outdid himself on the Croisette at the premiere of The Phoenecian Scheme, dressed in a double-breasted Saint Laurent suit, which he styled with a pair of thigh-high leather boots. Needless to say, his subversive footwear choice quickly garnered commentary online. One X user referenced a Joyce Carol Oates post: 'cannot a man or a boy 'mother'?'
Even outside of his leather-heavy bondage looks, Skarsgård knows how to spark conversation on the carpet. At the premiere of Eagles of the Republic, he paired a gray pinstripe blazer and a pale pink bowtie with blue sequin Bianca Saunders trousers.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
French Open: No. 2 Coco Gauff faces No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the women's final
PARIS (AP) — The biggest difference Coco Gauff sees between the player who lost her first Grand Slam final at the 2022 French Open at age 18, and the one who will play for the trophy again on Saturday at 21, this time against No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, is the way she views the importance of the occasion. Three years ago at Roland-Garros, Gauff was making her debut on that sort of stage and with that sort of prize at stake. It felt like the outcome meant absolutely everything, a burden that was a lot at the time and made her nervous. Now, the No. 2-ranked Gauff says, she understands 'how miniscule' the result Saturday is in the scheme of things. 'Everybody is dealing with way bigger things in life than losing a final,' the American said after beating 361st-ranked French wild-card entry Loïs Boisson 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals Thursday. 'I'm sure there are hundreds of players that would kill to win or lose a final, so just knowing that (makes) me realize how lucky and privileged I am to be in this position,' Gauff said. 'At first, I thought it would be the end of the world if I lost, and, you know, the sun still rose the next day. ... Regardless of the result, the sun will still rise.' Here's another key difference: The Gauff of today is a Grand Slam champion. She won the 2023 U.S. Open; her opponent in that final just so happened to be Sabalenka. 'I just remember kind of feeling,' Gauff said, 'like I was holding my breath to the match point.' Their head-to-head series is tied 5-5 entering the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in a French Open women's final since Serena Williams beat Maria Sharapova in 2023. Sabalenka beat Gauff in their most recent meeting, which came at the Madrid Open in May on the type of red clay used at Roland-Garros. So Gauff is well aware of Sabalenka's many talents, which were on full display during a 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-0 semifinal victory over three-time defending champion Iga Swiatek. 'She can come up with some big shots and big winners pretty much at all areas of the court,' Gauff said about the 27-year-old from Belarus. 'She's a fighter, as well. She's going to stay in the match regardless of the scoreline.' After getting pushed to a third set by Swiatek, who had won 26 matches in a row at the French Open, Sabalenka was pretty much perfect down the stretch. Even Sabalenka called the lopsided nature of that last set 'shocking for me.' She didn't make a single unforced error; Swiatek had 12. 'The pace was from her (was) super fast,' Swiatek said. 'It was just hard to get into any rally.' Sabalenka took over the top ranking from Swiatek last October and has remained there. Sabalenka is 40-6 this season with three titles and, while her three major championships all came on hard courts — at the 2023 and 2024 Australian Opens and the 2024 U.S. Open — the work she's put in to improve on clay is clearly paying off. 'I can go flat. I can (play) with the spin. I can go back and play in defense,' Sabalenka said. 'That's what works the best on the clay court for me.' The truth is, regardless of the surface, Sabalenka still appears to be most comfortable when she hits the ball as hard as possible. Her high-risk style offers a contrast to Gauff, who has been making an effort to be more aggressive with her forehand but usually is at her best when she is making opponents hit shot after shot because she can get to everything with her speed, instincts and defense. 'She's going to come out swinging,' Gauff said. 'I just have to expect that and do my best to kind of counter that.' ___ Howard Fendrich has been the AP's tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: More AP tennis:
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Aryna Sabalenka sets up blockbuster French Open showdown with Iga Swiatek
The post Aryna Sabalenka sets up blockbuster French Open showdown with Iga Swiatek appeared first on ClutchPoints. The French Open is beginning to wind down and the best of the best are starting to battle it out with the season's second major on the line. On Tuesday, the top half of the women's draw got the quarterfinals started with some of the top players in the world, including Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek. Advertisement Sabalenka kicked off the action on Court Philippe Chatrier with a hard-fought win over No. 8 seed Qinwen Zheng, 7-6(3) 6-3. Sabalenka and Zheng faced off in Rome just a couple of weeks prior to the start of Roland Garros, with the Chinese superstar coming away with the win. However, Sabalenka got her revenge by being tougher in the big moments after battling back from an early break down in the opening set. Swiatek, the three-time defending French Open champion, took to court next against No. 13 seed Elina Svitolina. Svitolina played the four-time champ closer than the final scoreline, but the No. 5 seed played phenomenally on the big points to come away with a gritty 6-1 7-5 victory. That sets up a massive showdown on Thursday between Sabalenka and Swiatek in the semifinals. Swiatek has been in worse form this season, but it's hard to pick against someone who has lost just one match in the last five years at Roland Garros. Advertisement On the other hand, Sabalenka has emerged as clearly the best player in the world. The World No. 1 is the rightful favorite at just about every event she enters, and she usually delivers. She has built a roughly 4,600-point lead in the rankings over No. 2 Coco Gauff, leaving no doubt about who is the queen of women's tennis. Incredibly, Sabalenka an Swiatek have not met at a Grand Slam since the 2022 U.S. Open, when Swiatek won a very close semifinal before defeating Ons Jabeur in the championship match. They were just one point away from contesting the 2023 French Open final, but Sabalenka couldn't get over the line against Karolina Muchova in the semifinals. Regardless of who you give the favorite status to, the battle on Thursday between Sabalenka and Swiatek will be tightly contested and will be one of the most highly-anticipated matches of the season, and very well could decide who wins the French Open.


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Lamine Yamal and the curious finish which shows why he is different
Lamine Yamal again. Adrien Rabiot again. Left-footed goals again. On a wild night in Stuttgart, where Spain and France played a game of basketball on a football pitch, the storyline had a familiar narrative running through it in more ways than one. It was 331 days ago when Yamal scored that goal against France in the European Championship semi-finals, his left foot sumptuously curling the ball into the top corner from 25 yards out, leaving Rabiot wishing that he had not only got across quicker to try to block the shot but that he had also chosen his words much more carefully the night before the game. Advertisement 'If you want to play at a Euro final, you need to do more than he has done up until now,' the France midfielder said about Yamal, who was 16 years old at the time. 'Move in silence, only speak when it's time to say checkmate,' Yamal replied on Instagram. Yamal posted again after scoring his wonder goal against France: 'Checkmate'. Eleven months later it was Rabiot who scythed down Yamal from behind for a penalty that the 17-year old calmly converted. What is it with teenagers constantly wanting to have the last word, eh? Except Yamal wasn't quite finished. His second goal against France, 13 minutes later, put Spain 4-1 up and made him the standout candidate for the player-of-the-match award. But it was a curious and highly unusual finish. Well, unusual for anyone else, but maybe not for Yamal. Some data first. In competitive games for club and country at senior level, Yamal has scored 31 goals and 29 of them have been with his left foot. His right foot isn't, to borrow that old cliche, just for standing on. But it's fair to say that he doesn't use it much, which is why Philipp Lahm said what he did when he told The Athletic in April how he would try to mark Yamal. 'He has to be on his weaker foot at all times. He cannot have any space,' Lahm, the former Germany international, said. One of Yamal's two weaker-foot goals came in Barcelona's 4-0 victory at the Bernabeu in October, after which he joked: 'Real Madrid's players didn't know that I have a right foot too! I had to use it when needed.' It looked like it would also be required against France in the UEFA Nations League semi-final on Thursday night, when Yamal broke into the penalty area in the second half after running onto a first-time pass from Pedro Porro. Holding off a challenge from the France centre-back Clement Lenglet — that wiry frame of Yamal's is deceptively strong — and with the angle against him, he somehow managed to slip the ball past the goalkeeper Mike Maignan. From a vantage point high up on the opposite side of the stadium — in other words, a long way from the goal — the first instinct was that Yamal had scored with his right foot, primarily because that was how it looked in the blink of an eye. Indeed, that was still the assumption when a slow motion replay started to be shown on the screen, partly because of the position of the ball but also the fact that the France centre-back Clement Lenglet was on the inside of Yamal rather than the outside. By going with his left foot, Yamal surely risked the shot being blocked. At least that was the theory. Yamal had other ideas and instead of taking the more conventional route and shooting with his right, he prodded the ball beyond Maignan with his left. It appeared as though the ball was almost pushed, which is why the soleplate of his boot is visible afterwards – Yamal has to work so hard to get enough purchase on the ball to send it past Maignan using this technique that his leg ends up horizontal after making contact. It looks strange when you watch it back but it was hugely effective and perhaps also goes some way to explaining why Maignan seemed to be caught slightly off guard and beaten in a way that you wouldn't expect him to be in that scenario. In fact, the France goalkeeper ended up diving after the ball was already past him, which suggests that Yamal had taken him by surprise with such an unorthodox and instinctive finish. It is also — and this is an area of his game where he is so different from his former Barcelona team-mate Ousmane Dembele, who genuinely has no idea which is his stronger foot — an example of how Yamal doesn't suffer at all from being so dependent on his left. Why? First things first, his left foot is obviously a thing of beauty, whether passing, shooting or dribbling. There was a moment late in the France game, which Spain won 5-4, when Yamal was performing pirouettes in the centre of the pitch, the ball glued to his left foot to such an extent that the opposition left-back Theo Hernandez decided to change sport. Cue a rugby tackle. Secondly, Yamal is able to improvise and use his left foot in so many different ways, including the 'trivela' – an outside-of-the-boot shot or pass that he executes brilliantly over a range of distances. Yamal is able to do that with such precision, that it doesn't just negate the need to use his right, but at times it's actually more efficient to play the ball with the outside of his left because it's naturally in his stride pattern. Inevitably at this point the mind wanders to other predominantly one-footed players, including everyone from Diego Maradona to Arjen Robben and Ricardo Quaresma. Ultimately, though, Yamal is one of a kind or, as the Inter Milan manager Simone Inzaghi recently put it, 'one of those talents that appear once every 50 years'. Advertisement Against France, on his 20th cap for Spain, Yamal upstaged Dembele, one of his rivals for the Ballon d'Or, and Kylian Mbappe and Desire Doue too. Next up for him is Cristiano Ronaldo, when Spain take on Portugal in the UEFA Nations League final in Munich on Sunday. Ronaldo, for context, was another six months away from playing his first international match at Yamal's age. (James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)