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Joshua Hendren

Contributing writer for Style by SCMP, specialising in jewellery, watches and pop culture


Over the past few months, it’s been near impossible to miss the return of the pinstripe suit, and nowhere was this clearer than at the 2026 Met Gala, fashion’s biggest night of the year.
Held annually at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the star-studded event brings together the world’s most famous faces to raise funds for the museum’s Costume Institute. This year’s exhibition, “Costume Art”, explores the relationship between clothing and the body, pairing historical and modern garments with art objects spanning 5,000 years of history. The dress code, Fashion Is Art, invited guests to treat the body as a canvas, with fashion a form of artistic expression.

Several guests chose pinstripe suiting as their artistic subject. Al Sharpton, the political activist and Baptist minister, arrived in a metallic golden pinstripe suit designed by his partner, New York fashion designer Aisha McShaw. “I wanted to show something solid but flashy at the same time,” he said on the famous carpeted stairs, “because I’m an urban New Yorker but at the same time, I can blend with the elitist crowd.” McShaw, who entered the fashion industry as a stylist, launched her womenswear label in 2017, and previously dressed Sharpton at the 2025 Met Gala in a dandy-inspired black tie with ruffled sleeves.

Sombr marked his first Met Gala appearance in a custom Valentino look designed by Alessandro Michele, who joined the Italian house as creative director in 2024. The glam-rock musician paired a hand-embroidered tulle and chiffon cape in a dégradé of silver and grey hues that reportedly took more than 500 hours to complete, with a lamé lace top embellished with an asymmetrical crêpe de Chine and satin motif and, most notably, trousers embellished with a silver pinstripe pattern.
Beyond its current red carpet appearances, the pinstripe’s origins are more utilitarian than one might expect. The pattern first emerged in the banking houses of Victorian London, where each institution adopted its own distinct stripe width or colour so that employees from different banks were immediately recognisable on the street. By the early 20th century, it had become the standard suit of the city and, later, Wall Street.

Its more thrilling chapter came in the 1920s, when American gangsters adopted the pinstripe as a uniform of their own. The 1980s also gave the pattern a second wind, when broader, bolder stripes became the look of a decade defined by financial excess. Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street and Patrick Bateman, the investment banker and villain protagonist of American Psycho (2000), became its Hollywood symbols, and for a time the pinstripe felt inseparable from a particular kind of corporate ruthlessness.
What changed things was a generation of designers who saw the pattern differently. Thom Browne and the late Alexander McQueen were among those who took it out of the boardroom entirely, pairing it with unexpected cuts and silhouettes. Around the same time, the pinstripe shed its exclusively male associations, becoming a staple of women’s tailoring too.
More recently, the Met Gala was far from the only red carpet where the pinstripe made its presence felt this year. Menswear icon Harry Styles made his first red carpet appearance in three years at the Brit Awards in February in a black-and-white bouclé pinstripe suit from Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2026 collection, worn over a pale-mint pinstripe shirt and a striped tie, finished with black ballet flats and white socks.

Ryan Gosling, meanwhile, rocked pinstripes at two premieres of his latest sci-fi adventure, Project Hail Mary. In Paris, he wore a Dolce & Gabbana single-breasted pinstripe suit with wide peak lapels, paired with a leather tie, that nodded to the broad-shouldered tailoring of the late 1980s and early 1990s; while in London, the actor opted for an Amiri fall 2026 burgundy suit, styled with a Tag Heuer Carrera Chronograph Seafarer watch.
Elsewhere, Barry Keoghan hopped on the trend at the New York premiere of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man in a custom Thom Browne suit that paid homage to the show’s role in making the three-piece pinstripe one of the most loaded garments in popular culture, accessorised with a silver chain hanging from his breast pocket and a black tie.

Nick Jonas, meanwhile, took a traditional approach at Ralph Lauren’s January show during Milan Fashion Week, wearing a Ralph Lauren Purple Label light-grey pinstripe suit with a matching tie and black leather shoes.
Kristen Stewart, by contrast, put forward a relaxed interpretation at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival, wearing a Tom Ford Resort 2026 pinstripe suit with the shirt mostly unbuttoned.
The pinstripe is certainly one of the most versatile patterns in tailoring right now. The vertical stripe is also one of the more flattering – its elongating effect going a long way to explaining why it keeps coming back.


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Pinstripe suits are back – and stars from Harry Styles to Ryan Gosling are wearing them

Harry Styles at the Brit Awards 2026, and Ryan Gosling at the March Project Hail Mary premiere in London. Both decided to go for pinstripes. Photos: Film Magic, Getty Images

Sombr departs The Mark Hotel before attending the Met Gala in May, in New York. Photo: Invision/AP

Al Sharpton at the 2026 Met Gala. Photo: Getty

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Aimé Leon Dore suit jacket at Mr Porter. Photo: Handout

Kristen Stewart at January’s 2026 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Photo: Getty Images

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Lewis Pullman looks good in smart-casual. Photo: WireImage

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Polo Ralph Lauren belt (US$127). Photo: Handout

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Manolo Blahnik ankle boots (US$1,250). Photo: Handout

Levi’s jeans (US$128). Photo: Handout

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Barry Keoghan, shirtless in McQueen at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, in March. Photo: Reuters

Jay Chou wearing a Dior suit jacket over a bare chest in Taipei, in March. Photo: Handout

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Sombr chose Valentino for the Met Gala, Kristen Stewart wore Tom Ford, and Nick Jonas suited up for Milan Fashion Week in Ralph Lauren Purple Label


Sombr chose Valentino for the Met Gala, Kristen Stewart wore Tom Ford, and Nick Jonas suited up for Milan Fashion Week in Ralph Lauren Purple Label.


Pinstripe suits are back – and stars from Harry Styles to Ryan Gosling are wearing them

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Sombr chose Valentino for the Met Gala, Kristen Stewart wore Tom Ford, and Nick Jonas suited up for Milan Fashion Week in Ralph Lauren Purple Label

Sombr chose Valentino for the Met Gala, Kristen Stewart wore Tom Ford, and Nick Jonas suited up for Milan Fashion Week in Ralph Lauren Purple Label