The end of the year has a few necessary evils: the return of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” best-album lists that start more X feuds than should be legal, and a feeling of nostalgia for the 11 or so months that just passed. As a fashion fiend, I’ve been preparing our best-dressed list since my first day at NYLON. It’s a list I don’t take lightly, so first, a few ground rules. One: Our winners should have a signature look but never veer into predictability. They also always wear fashion — not the other way around. Finally, they should exist both in the public conversation and NYLON’s Slack channels at least semi-regularly with enough public appearances to keep us fed.
With that in mind, scroll through our highlight reel of looks on the actors and musicians that made the most of their public outings with ‘fits we’ll be thinking about well into next year.
Charli XCX
As the high priestess of Brat speak-sings in the opening line of “360,” “ I went my own way and I made it” — and make it she did. NYLON has carefully tracked her ultra-high fashion this year, thanks to stylist Chris Horan, who’s helped curate a new look he describes as “a bitchy adult, the Charli XCX adult.” Her tour looks — including custom Saint Laurent, Acne Studios, Rodarte, and Burberry — are all textural, strappy, and look best when she’s raving her ass off onstage. Equally as impressive is her off-duty style, which shows her taste doesn’t stop when she’s not performing. Her tattered, deconstructed style has already trickled down to fast fashion and will surely be replicated in 2025.
Saoirse Ronan
Ronan had a quiet first half of the year, but it was clearly in preparation for a jam-packed few months that saw her promoting projects like The Outrun and Blitz. She’s certainly dressing like an award-winning star, thanks to her most fruitful collaboration of the year with stylist Danielle Goldberg, who’s helped Ronan hone in on a signature look. She’s wowed in bespoke column gowns from Louis Vuitton and given emerging designers like Hodakova and Colleen Allen the spotlight. The through line in all her looks is that she looks really cool.
Zendaya
By any count, Zendaya has had a packed year with two box office hits under her belt. While the Challengers press tour left us wanting a bit less green, her Dune run was undoubtedly one of the best premiere cycles she’s had. The vision was concise and included both emerging designers and archival pieces. Her standout look, however, was at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where she introduced Cher dressed as her döppelganger. Now that’s method dressing.
Drew Starkey
Drew Starkey was thrust from teen heartthrob fame into art-film renown with a star-making role in Queer. Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson designed the costumes for the film and quickly took Starkey under his wing, dressing him in custom wide-leg suits for his first time doing premieres and awards at this level. He’s still maintained that boyish charm despite all the high-price-tag fashion.
Ayo Edebiri
Not only does Edebiri play a Thom Browne-clad chef on The Bear, she embodies the same level of wealth in her off-camera style. As another Goldberg client, she’s proven her versatility with custom looks from Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, and Loewe, and also shown she gets style by wearing Dries Van Noten and New York fashion-kid mainstay Luar. Her playfulness lends itself beautifully to capital-F fun pieces like the doll-clothing Marc Jacobs dress.
Chloë Sevigny
The eternally best-dressed woman had a jam-packed year, casually pulling looks from Phoebe Philo and Christopher John Rogers for premieres and demonstrating that, just because you’re 50, doesn’t mean you need to hide your body. Her legs were indeed her best accessory this year, and while we love seeing her on a red carpet, her street style proves why she’s on every designer’s mood board: It’s the high/low, dressy/casual, femme/masc juxtaposition most of us spend our whole lives trying to replicate.
Emma Corrin
Corrin is slowly but surely proving themself to be a chameleon, with roles in both the box-office smash Deadpool & Wolverine and Robert Egger’s Nosferatu. Their fashion is equally as fluid. This year, their looks ranged from a sheer Saint Laurent dress to a skimpy Nina Ricci bodysuit, plus a sickly green Miu Miu suit Jackie O. would approve of and a drop-dead gorgeous Schiaparelli Couture buckle jacket. Corrin and stylist Harry Lambert are clearly having fun and know when to strike the balance between madcap and fashionable (and sometimes, it’s about mixing both).
Daisy Edgar-Jones
Another British darling ready for the big leagues, Edgar-Jones gave us lots to write about during her Twisters press tour. Her work with stylist Dani Michelle was a lesson in feminine restraint — and officially confirmed 2024 as the year of the boob. Indeed, her spliced white Gucci gown was sexy and revealing in all the right places, and her many Chloé looks required no bra. We’re all here for a bit of drama, but even better if it doesn’t have to come at the price of taste.
Omar Apollo
The saddest young star on the pop scene is also one of its most stylish. His music videos have fashion credits that rival a magazine photo shoot, and his swaggering energy matches up with his larger-than-life fashion. He’s another Loewe regular, wearing custom pieces to the Met Gala and Venice, but also cleans up well in Gucci and embodies pop-star cool in swinging furs and workwear pieces for the stage.
Taylor Russell
Russell moves stealthily with no social media accounts and no acting credits this year save for an off-Broadway production. However, her turn as a member of the jury panel at the Venice Film Festival was more than enough to get her on our list. She and stylist Jahleel Weaver gave a master class in red-carpet fashion, pulling archival Chanel effortlessly from the ‘90s and making it look as modern as ever, with custom Alaïa and Schiaparelli couture sprinkled in. That, plus her career-best look at the Met Gala in a Loewe corset, proved she doesn’t need a packed schedule to pack a punch.
Hunter Schafer
Schafer was in her indie-darling bag this year, and she dressed the part, working with friend and stylist Dara on a bevy of looks that kept us guessing. One minute, she’s in a windswept gazar Prada gown, and the next, she’s in a tuxedo-inspired corset dress by Bottega Veneta. A casual flex at the Berlin premiere of Cuckoo came in the form of her Maison Margiela Artisanal look, pulled straight from the most-talked-about runway show of the year, to which she lent appropriate drama. But her one-two punch at Cannes proved her sartorial dexterity: At the photo call, she wore a silly-yet-cool milkmaid Prada look (our favorite of the event), and on the red carpet, she oozed Old Hollywood glamour in Armani Privé.
