Rich, influential and poorly dressed: Powerful men have a new uniform

One of the best memes of this year is undoubtedly the photo of Justin Bieber turned into a caricature of himself, wearing yellow Crocs and tracksuit bottoms combined with a sweatshirt and a pink Nahmias cap. And next to him is his wife, Hailey Bieber, looking flawless in an impeccable red strapless Ermanno Scervino mini dress.

In the image, Justin Bieber is the personification of the scumbro trend, defined by Vanity Fair columnist Kenzie Bryant, who put together the words “scum” and “bro.” This trend defines the aesthetics of celebrities such as Pete Davidson, Tom Holland and Machine Gun Kelly. What defines this hectic style is an absolute lack of aesthetic coherence; they want us to know that they walked out of their houses wearing the first thing they saw in their closets. What is often striking (and incomprehensible) is that scumbros usually have a partner (like Hailey Bieber) who looks exactly the opposite; their outfits are neat, stylish.

“The strategy, in the end, is that celebrity couples dress alike, something that is accentuated when there are brands involved,” Leticia García, chief fashion editor of the fashion magazine SModa, says. “Everything is marketing, and the construction of the celebrity image is nothing more than advertising. The next step is the construction of the image of the couple, something that seems to me to be a way of stripping people of [their] self-identity.”

Looking disheveled on purpose

Going out looking messy and untidy — compared to one’s partner — is a strategy to attract attention, according to Pedro Mansilla, a sociologist, journalist and fashion critic. This is particularly true when we talk about celebrity couples, Mansilla adds. Famous men tend to do it when they are dating “women who have achieved notoriety on their own merits.”

Mansilla points out that this happens primarily in heterosexual couples and adds that it could be due to the so-called bad boy attraction, with his characteristic sins: carelessness, unpunctuality, laziness, etc. There is nothing more attractive than a guy who — due to his status, and thus, power — can dress whichever way he wants, says Mansilla. In other words, according to this new trend (very ad hoc with the Silicon Valley power players who went from nerds to billionaires at the beginning of this century), for a powerful man, nothing is more exciting and vindicating than to dress as if he were powerless.

This style is, in fact, the result of an aesthetic decision. Actor Adam Sandler considers himself, perhaps, the last great purist of the scumbro style, someone who dresses this way out of sheer carelessness. When asked in an interview how he would define his aesthetic, he replied: “A man who opened a suitcase and threw something on.” The difference between Sandler and others — such as Justin Bieber or Pete Davidson — is that he is probably the only one who dresses this way in the most natural way possible. Nowadays, scumbros wear streetstyle brands such as Palace and Supreme, as well as clothing from big brands l Gucci, Versace, and Prada. Their style is more about being perfectly imperfect.

Proof that whoever dresses like this does not do it out of laziness, but with absolute intention, is that when a user wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Diplo was starting to “look like a dude that sells you bad weed on the Venice boardwalk,” the musician posted a screenshot of the tweet on his Instagram profile along with the caption “Goals achieved.” Even Esquire magazine published an article in which it pointed out that celebrities dress “like teenage weed dealers.”

Brands like Balenciaga and Acne Studio have seized on this supposedly chaotic aesthetic. And, as Kyle Dinkjian — who runs the Instagram account JonahFits, which analyzes Jonah Hill’s looks — explained to The Wall Street Journal, this style inspires men who “don’t look like movie stars to get into their own fashion and make it their own.”

“People are tired of the ‘everything goes’” mentality, Pedro Mansilla counters. “Uglysm still dominates, but the sartorial order will prevail at some point. The anti-establishment style is showing signs of fatigue. The dandy is starting to come out of the closet,” he adds.

A new type of narcissist

But do these men really not care about their style at all? “When someone claims that fashion is banal and superfluous, it’s a sure sign that they are a person who thinks they are above the rest,” says García. “People dress not only as a way of expressing themselves, but also out of respect for others.” We must differentiate here, however, between two types of scumbros. One of them is Justin Bieber, who knows about fashion, has been nourished by it and has collaborated, in fact, with big brands such as Calvin Klein. His scumbro style is actually worth thousands of dollars. On the opposite side of the spectrum is something like Adam Sandler, who many Internet users defend for being someone who dresses according to his comfort and his own style. He is true to himself. Authentic.

“A trained eye should always distinguish those who don’t care how they are dressed from those who do care, but pretend they don’t,” Mansilla explains. “These are the most interesting because, in principle, they set the upward trend. We have become so bored with seeing the integrated that we wish to see the apocalyptic, to use Umberto Eco’s terminology.”

It seems that stylistic laziness is less and less about laziness and more and more about strategy, especially when a closer look at their closets reveals that every garment and accessory is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. If silent luxury has taught us that even the most basic white T-shirt can be a sign of social status, styles like scumbro are not precisely symptoms of passivity, but of careful decisions. Today’s narcissist has mutated: he is no longer just Christian Bale in American Psycho, he has also been spotted wearing sweatpants, a Hawaiian shirt and Crocs.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition