Salma Hayek explains why she only wore mens’ suits to her early red carpet appearances

‘I didn’t have any connections,’ actor says

Salma Hayek Pinault has explained the reason why she solely wore menswear to many of her early red carpet appearances.

The actor, 56, reflected on her decades-long career in Hollywood in a new interview with W Magazine. When asked whether she remembers her first-ever red carpet appearance, Hayek recalled how she wore a “man’s suit” to the occasion because it was the only fashion connection she had at the time.

“I didn’t have any connections,” Hayek said, referring to the moment she walked the red carpet at the 1996 premiere of The Birdcage. “The only connection I had was to somebody I knew at Hugo Boss, so I wore a man’s suit because no one else gave me anything to wear.”

For the Los Angeles movie premiere, which took place at Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, California, Hayek wore a grey, pinstriped suit jacket with matching trousers and a mock-neck black T-shirt underneath.

The Mexican-American actor previously opened up about her first red carpet in a 2021 interview with Vogue India, where she explained that designers had declined to dress her at the time because she wasn’t as well-known in the industry.

“I’m Mexican. I’m also very short, which doesn’t help with the weight and doesn’t help with the design," she told the fashion magazine. "But you know, I was ingenious. I took chances. I met someone at Hugo Boss, who was the only connection I had, so I wore man suits for a while.”

Speaking to Vogue India, Hayek went on to recall how she wore a “very simple black dress” to MTV Music Video Awards in 1998. While she noted that all the other women were wearing “fabulous dresses” and “beautiful jewellery,” she decided to decorate her body with butterfly tattoos.

“Instead of giving me a complex and saying that I don’t have the best dress or they don’t know who I am, I was like: ‘I am fabulous,’” she said. “I painted some butterfly tattoos on myself and I felt happy about myself."

While Hayek has since made a name for herself in the fashion world, she hasn’t strayed far from her menswear roots. The House of Gucci star wore another menswear look for her late-night appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 1996, where she sported a brown suit with a white button-down shirt and red geometric tie.

In 2014, she was pictured wearing a navy blue Saint Laurent suit with a sharp black tie and white button-up shirt, as well as a black tuxedo dress with a matching black bow tie for the premiere of Exodus: Gods and Kings that same year.

Not only is the Magic Mike’s Last Dance actor a fashion icon, but she’s also married to French businessman François Henri-Pinault: the CEO of luxury goods company Kering, which owns fashion brands including Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen. The two began dating in 2006 and welcomed their now 15-year-old daughter, Valentina Paloma Pinault, the following year.

In March, Hayek walked the 2023 Oscars red carpet with her daughter as her date. She even loaned the teenager a dress from her fashion archives for the event: a vintage red Isaac Mizrahi gown, which Hayek wore in 1997.