The British actor Tom Holland is currently starring in Jamie Lloyd’s West End production of Romeo and Juliet, a stark and modern take on the canon’s most famous love story. The play marked the Spider-Man star’s return to acting after taking a year off following his harrowing experience filming the gritty Apple TV+ crime thriller The Crowded Room, and fans eagerly snapped up tickets to see the show within hours of Holland’s casting announcement.
Since its premiere in June, Holland has capped off many of his evening performances by greeting fans outside the London theater’s stage doors—a ritual that subsequently provides the awaiting paparazzi with a glimpse of his post-show outfits. The actor’s off-duty looks are reliably benign, neat, and masculine; he errs towards minimal patterns, muted tones, and taut proportions that emphasize his toned arms. (Holland’s Romeo spends a good deal of his time on stage wearing a ribbed white tank.) He typically caps off each look with a pair of very clean, very new-looking white sneakers.
Ricky Vigil M / Justin E Palmer
Ricky Vigil M/Justin E Palmer/Getty Images
After the show’s opening night, Holland and girlfriend Zendaya exited the The Duke of York’s Theatre together; he wore a thin knit Prada sweater with plain black trousers and Oxfords, while she—the doyenne of method dressing for an occasion—wore a twinkling (and very Shakespearian) Vivienne Westwood dress that featured puffed sleeves and a corset. The simple look set the tone for Holland’s high-street style through the rest of the run. During the month of June, the actor wore a buttoned black cardigan with loose trousers and a white tank; a nubby gray sweater vest layered over a white T-shirt and light-wash jeans; and a nondescript gray T-shirt under a pale military-green jacket with slouchy khakis and a messenger bag.
This week, there was a minor fan frenzy over Holland’s latest stage-door ensemble: a boxy, striped A.P.C. tee that he wore with baggy blue jeans cuffed at the hem and another pair of optic white trainers. (It helped that when Holland waved to the crowd, the T-shirt’s truncated hem flashed a bit of his bare belly.) As usual with Holland, the proportions here were intentional; according to his stylist Crystalle Cox’s Instagram story, the tee had been cropped by tailor Chloe Cammidge.
Holland’s personal style has always tended to be quite neutral and put-together, but it is perhaps because Holland’s outfits are approachable and masculine that his current haircut elevates his effect to that of a full menswear bloke. The costuming for the role of Romeo required the actor to shear off his usual curls into a laddish taper with blunt, Caesar-ish bangs, and it more or less made him look like an entirely new man. As British GQ’s Peter Bevan put it, the cut is “hard, but also princely. It’ll ask you for a duel, and a cig.”
Ricky Vigil M / Justin E Palmer
Justin E Palmer / Getty Images
“The inspiration for Tom’s haircut was the modern take on Romeo and Juliet,” the play’s hairstylist Larry King recently explained to GQ. “Looking at the clothes and the production of the show, we wanted to go for something that was stronger than usual. Initially he was going to shave it all but I suggested going for short and tight sides with a gradual fade to a military-esque top.” If haircuts were people, Holland’s blokecore fade and Joe Burrow’s bleached-blond buzz cut would surely have one hell of a night at an electronic music festival somewhere.
