Anya Taylor-Joy is pushing the Furiosa-style method dressing trend

Eyes follow Anya Taylor-Joy as she steps onto a red carpet, and subsequent descriptions of her ensembles often include adjectives like glamorous, ethereal, angelic, and the like. But when she faced the lenses of photographers in Sydney at the beginning of May for the world premiere of “George Millers”. Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaWhat followed was a series of exclamation points. Nervous! Electric! Striking! Furiosa approved!

Taylor-Joy wore a vintage look from Paco Rabanne's Spring 1996 Haute Couture collection. The sheer chain mail creation featured triangular and oval diamonté arrowhead embellishments that protruded from both the body of the dress and the matching headpiece.

With her appearance, Taylor-Joy became the latest star to fashionably push a trend described as method dressing, or character cosplay. It's become ubiquitous lately thanks to style stars like Zendaya, Margot Robbie, Emma Stone, Kristen Stewart and Florence Pugh. Although they've only made a handful of appearances together to set up their highly anticipated two-parter Evil In the musical, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo stuck heavily to the pink and green influences (pink for Grande's Glinda and emerald for Erivo's gravity-defying Elphaba), which teased a lot more cosplay ahead of the first film's debut in November.

Although Taylor-Joy bucked the trend when she stepped out in a Dior Haute Couture tulle dress at Cannes on May 15, many others took a stand Furious On her press tour, Taylor-Joy went full throttle with a look that seamlessly fits in with Miller's Crazy Max Dieselpunk world. The 28-year-old actress and Dior muse kicked off CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April wearing a black, rock-chic eyelet-accented Ludovic de Saint Sernin leather mini dress. She continued in Mexico City wearing a white leather look by Robert Wun and a black leather bustier dress by Acne Studios. And at a photocall in Sydney, she delivered another futuristic appearance, wearing an orange Rick Owens top and a high-waisted leather skirt.

Actors and stylists have long turned to pages and screens big and small for inspiration for red carpet attire. But thanks to Robbie and her breathtaking months of work, the method reached new heights and a new cultural awareness Barbie Expertly curated by her stylist Andrew Mukamal, the promo tour featured an explosion of pink and meticulously crafted, luxurious recreations of the looks worn by the iconic doll.

“If people at home know about the characters and have a visual awareness of them before they see the film, then you can really go there,” Mukamal said The Hollywood Reporter during a dinner celebrating the Power Stylists list, where he was named long-running Stylist of the Year. Mukamal previously expanded on the trend with Zoë Kravitz The Batman, which cast her as Catwoman. “So many people knew who Catwoman was even before they saw Zoe's version of the character. In projects like this Barbie inclusive, there is so much wealth to draw from. It's proven to be a really great approach for certain projects, especially when it comes to getting a message across and making a big impact on a press tour. I love seeing it out there more and more.”

Fans of Zendaya and her longtime stylist Law Roach went crazy online for her tennis-core looks at the global press tour for Luca Guadagnino challenger. She kicked things off at the Sydney premiere with a sparkly, low-cut Loewe dress that featured a tennis player mid-serve. She wore another Loewe design in London that included a tennis skirt and Loewe stilettos with a tennis ball on each heel. The performance was followed by another worldwide press tour, where the Emmy winner and Roach assembled numerous ensembles for her role as Chani in Denis Villeneuve's film Dune: Part Two. Who can forget the London look that saw Zendaya in a vintage Mugler robot suit from his 1995-96 haute couture show?

Another prominent example in recent months was Stone's candidacy Poor things with her long-time stylist Petra Flannery. The veteran Louis Vuitton ambassador wore a series of tailored looks that complemented Stone's character Bella Baxter in the world created by Yorgos Lanthimos. “I always try to take a little something from the film, some kind of nod or reference to the character,” Flannery says THR. “I don't usually do it in such a literal or pretentious way, but just something that helps convey a sense of inspiration, be it a color reference or a silhouette.”

Or an accessory. Flannery says, “For her character name, we had Louis Vuitton make BB pins that were made of gold and pearls. We have placed them on some looks from time to time, for example on a belt or lapel to indicate the figure. These things are so inspiring and it's fun to keep contributing to art with nods like that. As Emma said, it’s one of her favorite characters, so it was great to keep the character alive in this way.”

In other cases, the innuendos are so subtle that even the most critical eyes fail to notice them. “The clue could be so small that only me and the actress know,” Flannery teases. “It could be a color or an accessory so they know a small part of the character is always with them.”

Stylist team Wayman Deon and Micah McDonald say method dressing can be a useful storytelling tool that works well with the film's marketing. But you can also avoid telling a different story in your professional life. “When they introduce a new character or project, we sometimes turn to film to tell a visual story,” McDonald explains. “But we also shy away from it when we're working with a client and they're ready to move on to their next image or direction. It can be useful to do something that is the exact opposite of what they just portrayed to signal where they want to go or how they want to be perceived for the next trip.”