“It Was Ropey Where I’m From”: Jack O’Connell On The Derbyshire Dress Codes That Made Him
We’re barely three weeks into 2026, and yet Instagram would have you believe it’s 2016 again, with just about everyone reposting photos from a year that took far more from culture than it gave. George Michael. EU membership. The promise of Jack O’Connell starring in a Lee McQueen biopic. “It’s probably remiss of me to even bring it up, because it didn’t happen in the end,” O’Connell says of the film, which was rumoured to be set during the six months leading up to the designer’s final autumn/winter show, Horn of Plenty, and is now said to be back in development. “But it cracked fashion open for me, understanding the artistry that goes into it. It was a f***ing awakening.” The prospect of O’Connell returning to the project is unlikely. “I’ve got a lot of McQueen books going spare at home.”
By today’s standards – now that ingénues are beamed onto catwalks almost overnight – the Derby-born O’Connell came to fashion relatively late. It was six years after his breakout as Cook, the self-destructive heartthrob of Skins, that he fronted Prada’s spring/summer 2015 campaign. Yet clothes had always carried meaning. “It was ropey where I’m from, and you had to survive,” he says. “There were codes. Dos and don’ts. How you presented yourself was part of a message: ‘Don’t f*** with me.’” While those rules have shifted with fame – “none of that stuff applied anymore” – certain ideals have stuck. Armani, for example, was among the more powerful status signifiers in his teenage arsenal, and he will this morning make a select appearance for the house at its autumn/winter 2026 show at men’s fashion week in Milan. “I’m very particular about who and what I collaborate with,” he adds. “But I’ve always had an adoration for Armani. You were f***ing more than happy to get your hands on a bit of that as a kid, man.”
Sure, there are other reasons for his showing up: promoting 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (in which he plays a violent cult leader named Sir Jimmy Crystal), and campaigning for Sinners (where he appears as the lilting vampire Remmick), but O’Connell says that being seen – and photographed – at fashion week is not the point. “It’s a chance to celebrate a creative outlet that isn’t my own,” he explains. “And if that’s in keeping with what I’m about as an artist, I’m absolutely exploring it.” It helps, of course, that there’s Armani on the table: in this instance, a loose, double-breasted suit that leaves him only marginally less louche than the villains he plays on screen. “I was caught between two looks, but once this went on, well, there was only one winner,” he says. “It’s beautiful.” It’s also the result of stylist Luke Day’s ongoing efforts to balance a sense of “experimentation” with a “truism” rooted in where O’Connell comes from.
