We’re still a full week out from Christmas, but Timothée Chalamet’s freewheelin’ A Complete Unknown press tour just keeps on delivering gift after delightfully bizarre gift. First, there was College GameDay Timmy, who paired a scintillating Martine Rose parka with surprisingly elite gridiron analysis. There was BeyBlade Timmy, who mysteriously gripped one of the early-aughts Japanese toys on the red carpet of the Bob Dylan biopic’s Hollywood premiere with zero explanation. There was Modern-Day Dylan Cosplay Timmy, who showed up at the New York premiere in a head-to-toe facsimile of a look the actual Dylan wore to Sundance in 2003—an inevitability GQ’s own Eileen Cartter predicted 16 months ago!—with a swoopy bleach-blond fringe peeking out from beneath a slouchy knit beanie.
And today, most blessedly of all, we’ve been given Tim-goatee Chalamet. (Sorry.)
Yes, barely two weeks after Jacob Elordi caused a veritable civil war on Twitter by unveiling an itchy-looking Michael McDonald beard, Chalamet has responded with a facial hair…choice of his own. In the midst of the Elordi beard controversy, I called up a couple of master barbers in an attempt to better understand why the internet was so split on it. I can say now with certainty that I will not need any expert commentary to diagnose the issue with Chalamet’s goatee. It is the sort of patchy undergrowth possessed only by Wendy’s-parking-lot weed dealers and college sophomores dressing up as Captain Jack Sparrow to their frat’s Halloween party. It is a soul patch that suddenly felt insecure and crawled down to hide beneath the chin. It is…just not right. And yet, in the manner of his heartthrob forebear Brad Pitt’s mid-2000s lost-in-the-woods bearded era, I’m sorry to report that Chalamet is ethereally beautiful enough to damn near make it look good.
The same can be said for the rest of his outfit on this particular occasion, which I was too distracted by the goatee to mention was a British Film Institute event in London hosted by Chalamet’s Lady Bird and Little Women costar Saoirse Ronan. He wore a boxy, beat-to-hell leather peacoat over an untucked yellow oxford shirt and baggy, sagging cargo pants—a typically chaotic, post-swag Timmy ensemble that only he can really make work.
The pièce de résistance was his pair of well-worn white Nike Air More Uptempos, a ’90s basketball shoe made famous by Scottie Pippen and beloved by sneakerheads (and collaborators like Supreme and Ambush) for its unusual bubble-letter design. These are perhaps the sole component of the look we would wholeheartedly encourage you to try if you don’t happen to be Timothée Chalamet.
Over the course of this press tour, we’ve seen Chalamet smartened up in retro Celine suiting and Everymanned out in classic American workwear. But there’s nothing quite as invigorating and refreshing as seeing Timmy just do Timmy, whether that means flashing a BeyBlade or goofing with blond bangs or growing an unhinged goatee just for the hell of it.