Cannes 2025: Celebs go haute couture to hint at inner kinks

CANNES 2025: CELEBS GO HAUTE COUTURE TO HINT AT INNER KINKS

The Cannes 2025 Film Festival — the 78^th edition of the annual south-of-France glamathon at which films are also screened — officially began on May 13 this year. And since the 12-day programme is not scheduled to finish until Saturday May 24, it’s quite possible that you might be reading this while it’s still (just) going on!

This article was certainly written while it was still going on — but only because we felt like we’d already absorbed enough coverage of it over its first week to be pretty confident of the general direction of running in this year’s red carpet exhibitionist stakes.

As you may be aware, some new dresscode rules were imposed this year by the organisers, in response to the excesses of undress that have featured at recent celebtastic events like Coachella and, before it, the Grammys (courtesy of Kanye West’s missus Bianca Censori). As a consequence, ‘naked’ dresses were banned on this year’s Cannes red carpet and in any other areas of the festival. And at the other end of the scale, the event also nixed ‘voluminous outfits, in particular those with a large train’ (presumably anything over eight carriages).

Top image: Jury host Juliette Binoche in the black leather Dior haute couture gown she wore for the opening ceremony of Cannes 2025. Designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the dress apparently took two artisans 200 hours to create (photo: Daniele Venturelli)

Above left: Full-length shot of Juliette Binoche in her black leather Dior gown (photo: Daniele Venturelli). Above right: Alexander Skarsgård in St Laurent wader-style black leather thigh-boots (photo: Deadline)

The new rules clearly presented this year’s Cannes attention-seekers with something of a dilemma; to wit: ‘how do I ensure I’m noticed by the massed paparazzi if I’m not able to show as much flesh as I normally rely on?’. Now, to many fetish folk, the answer to that would be blindingly obvious, as for a lot of us, dressing for sex, rather than undressing for it, is what floats our boats. With a whole world of slinky, skin-tight, full-coverage latex out there for the taking — in perpetually popular black and every other colour under the sun — why would you need to look any further for the solution?

But, as with May’s Met Gala in New York (where the only visible latex was a necktie worn by Tessa Thompson), latex at Cannes has been noticeable so far only by its absence. However, as with some other recent celeb events, fetish proxies have once again been being doing sterling work standing in for the real thing in the wardrobe department.

And once again, black has ruled the roost for those espousing this year’s keynote quasi-kink style. And for maximum impact, this has required the collaboration of celebs’ favourite French couture houses, where typical price tags are many, many times what most latex designers could dream of charging for anything.

Above left: Gabriette Bechtel in strapless black leather gown by Skullsqwat. Above right: Irina Shayk rocks the gothic mermaid look in Elie Saab gown (both photos: Mike Marsland)

Some would probably say this was always the way things were bound to go on planet celeb — that the latex some had dallied with for previous red carpet outings was merely a stepping stone to the sunlit uplands where self-respecting stars and starlets could regain their dignity by wearing stuff that looks like fetishwear — but isn’t! Do you see what they did there?!

That said, however, we’re the first to admit that among the near misses at Cannes 2025 there were some more estimable attempts to embrace the kink aesthetic, not least among them one of the multiple outfits worn by this year’s Jury President Juliette Binoche, a goddess in the truest sense of the word. As you can see in our top image and the one below it, Juliette’s choice for the opening ceremony was a form-fitting, one-shouldered, floor-length black gown that in many photographs, so closely resembled the unpolished heavy gauge rubber of 1960s gimp suits that we did initially wonder if someone had found a perfectly preserved cache of AtomAge garments in a dusty attic!

The fact that it turned out to be a Dior Haute Couture leather dress (designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri) only confirmed to us the extent of the influence wielded by those actual latex gowns by actual latex designers, proudly worn until very recently by celebs at events of this kind. So please don’t come to us with your complaints of cultural appropriation — let’s just be proud that the humble latex fashion industry has been so inspiring!

Above left: Simonna aka Simona Milinyte in black leather jacket and circle skirt (designer unknown) at the Infolist pre-Cannes party (photo: Dan Kennedy). Above right: Nana Komatsu in Chanel black patent mini-dress (photo: Chanel)

And let’s also give a nod to whoever styled Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård in his quirky combination of double-breasted black tuxedo bottomed-off with thigh-length leather boots. Both the tux and the wader-style boots were sourced from St Laurent, the boots apparently being a subtle(?) nod to his role as the leader of a biker gang who becomes the dom to a young submissive in Pillion, which was premiered at Cannes 2025. But a word of caution: actual bikers wearing St Laurent on their Harleys might still be a way off, we think.

Other black leather wearers we have spotted at Cannes included US musician/model Gabriette Bechtel in a strapless leather gown by Skullsqwat; actress/singer Simonna aka Simona Milinyte in a short biker-style jacket and voluminous leather ankle-length skirt (at the pre-Cannes Infolist party); and Japanese actress/Chanel ambassador Nana Komatsu in a black patent leather Chanel mini-dress.

In terms of fetish-adjacent, non-leather looks, what goth girlie wouldn’t crave the Elie Saab gown that provided the wonderfully ornate gothic mermaid look for Russian model Irina Shayk? And last but not least, we were almost fooled by some of the Cannes 2025 photos of Filipino drag performer Marina Summers and British actress Naomi Ackie, both of whom appeared in ultra-shiny black gowns that on closer scrutiny turned out to be black sequin/metallic fabric. Marina’s dress was by designer (and race driver) Mark Bumgarner while Naomi’s was a Balenciaga Haut Couture number.

Above left: Marina Summers in black sequin gown by Mark Bumgarner (photo: Photographers In Paris). Above right: Naomi Ackie in Balenciaga Haute Couture gown (photo: Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Getty)

Our conclusion? Cannes 2025 has confirmed that, if you have access to couture-level resources, there are definitely some very exclusive, very expensive other ways to skin a kinky cat. But for the rest of us, latex is surely still the best option!