Alexander Skarsgård’s “Wicker” Promos Mix Clear Shoes and Gray Wigs

By Tom Whitfield

Alexander Skarsgård wore clear plastic lace-up shoes with a metallic gold Saint Laurent suit to the London premiere of “Wicker” earlier this month, before the fantasy romance’s limited Oct. 23 release and Oct. 30 expansion.

Three looks, one press tour

• At the London premiere, Skarsgård combined a metallic gold Saint Laurent suit with clear plastic lace-up shoes.
• At the Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday, he wore a multicolored skirt and a whimsical black shirt bearing his co-star Olivia Colman’s face.
• Earlier that day, at a SAG-AFTRA screening and Q&A, he arrived in a long gray wig.

At an Academy Museum Gala interview on Saturday, Skarsgård said: “They were surprisingly comfortable, and I was worried that they would steam up in five minutes, but that actually didn’t happen.”

He added: “But I’ve been getting a lot of comments from friends and family about my little piglets sticking out. They make fun of me. They make fun of my feet.”

At the Los Angeles premiere, the black shirt came from London fashion house Chopova Lowena. Skarsgård said the group had been on the press tour for a couple of weeks and that Los Angeles was its final big premiere before the film opened on Friday. He wanted to wear something special for Olivia Colman, whom he said he adored.

The skirt combined purple and green. Skarsgård called it comfortable, light and breezy, and said he was enjoying it on the hot night.

Earlier that day, Skarsgård’s long gray wig drew surprise at the SAG-AFTRA screening and Q&A. He explained that praise for Colman’s hair and its color had made him jealous.

He said his own hair was receiving no attention. As a self-deprecating reference to his narcissism as an actor, he said he needed some and added the gray wig to match Colman.

His stated motives are comfort, affection and self-aware spectacle. No stylist is identified, and Skarsgård offers no broader rationale for the looks. The sequence reads as a series of personal jokes rather than a detailed campaign concept.

“Wicker” co-star Elizabeth Debicki endorsed the choices without qualification, saying he could do no wrong. She also said she loved him and admitted that she was biased.

The practical wicker costume

In “Wicker,” Colman plays an outcast in a medieval town who falls in love with a man made of wicker, played by Skarsgård. Debicki plays a housewife whose jealousy burns over the attention that Colman and Skarsgård’s characters receive from the townspeople.

That premise makes the costume a practical production problem as well as a fantasy image. Skarsgård’s wicker look was created by the Wētā Workshop in New Zealand. Lead makeup effects artist Sarah Rubano, prosthetic designer Joe Dunckley and lead weaver Jasmin van Lith formed the credited team.

Colman said seeing Skarsgård in the costume for the first time: “Amazing.”

She continued: “We’d seen backward and forwards from Weta Workshop in New Zealand images for about 18 months, and so suddenly he puts it on, and we were all going, ‘Oh God, I hope it works.’ And he came out of the makeup trailer and went, ‘Oh God, it’s beautiful.’”

The 18-month image process is the strongest evidence of preparation given for the film. Colman’s reaction also records the reveal as a success for her, though it does not establish how the finished design reads for general audiences.

What do the looks change for “Wicker”?

Practically, the looks give the press tour a set of concrete images: Colman’s face on a shirt, transparent shoes, a gray wig and a costume built from the film’s central wicker premise. They do not establish critical or commercial appeal.

No reviews, ticket sales or box-office forecasts accompany these claims, so any suggestion that the publicity will produce a larger audience remains untested.

“Wicker” begins its limited release on Oct. 23 and expands on Oct. 30. After the wider rollout, audiences will decide whether the practical wicker costume and the red-carpet joke have force beyond the premiere; no reception figures are given to forecast it.