The Sartorial Rise of Nicholas Galitzine, From Sundance Unknown to Fendi’s Front Row
A torn shoulder is a strange place for a fashion story to begin, but Nicholas Galitzine‘s begins there. Hammersmith, September 1994: a City financier’s son and a Greek-American mother, raised Greek Orthodox under a surname borrowed from the Russian princely House of Golitsyn—borrowed being the word, since the documented paternal line is stubbornly British and the royal bit is more pub legend than parish record. He was a Dulwich College rugby boy, county standard, the Harlequins academy in his sights, until a run of rotator-cuff tears took the sport off the table around 17. He taught himself guitar and turned to acting instead. For a decade, he stayed the one you half-recognized and couldn’t place: opposite Luke Perry in The Beat Beneath My Feet, a violinist in High Strung, a closeted rugby player in Handsome Devil, a prince in Cinderella.
Then the climb went vertical. Purple Hearts (2022) became the most-watched film on Netflix that year; a year on, Red, White & Royal Blue topped charts in countries he’d never set foot in. By 2024, between Mary & George and The Idea of You, the name finally stuck. Fashion kept pace, starting when Fendi made him its first global menswear ambassador in 2023. Emporio Armani followed with a fragrance deal in 2024. And stylist Felicity Kay, the mastermind behind Paul Mescal’s fashion evolution, took the carpets in hand on a premise that sounds plainer than it plays: classic menswear, one thing knocked off true. An odd shoe. A bloom embroidered somewhere a bloom has no business being.
The latest chapter rebuilt him from the frame out. To play He-Man in this year’s Masters of the Universe, Galitzine put himself under David Kingsbury—the trainer who’s bulked Chris Hemsworth and Ryan Reynolds for their superhero turns—for the better part of a year: 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day, three-hour weight sessions done fasted and then straight onto the stunt floor, until the director, Travis Knight, pronounced the man in front of him “a totally different dude.” He isn’t pausing to admire it. A Red, White & Royal Blue sequel is moving, and he’s booked opposite Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson in Amazon MGM’s Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective. What follows is the wardrobe that tracked the whole improbable climb, from a Sundance step-and-repeat to Fendi‘s front row, frame by frame.
