“DO IT! JUST DO IT!” Ah, pleasant memories of the 2015 YouTube video of a straggly bearded Shia LeBeouf sporty a long shaggy rat tail hairdo on a green screen, screaming his motivational “speech” at millions of viewers. Something of a Hollywood pariah, his public and social media behavior have gotten him some attention that’s so far off the beaten path most of celeb-dom shares that we’re just plain curious.
Let’s climb inside the head and wardrobe of Shia LeBeouf for a moment. Machinery accidents cause something like 35% of career injuries and 14% of workplace deaths. Now, the machinery in Shia LeBeouf’s 2007 blockbuster debut Transformers luckily didn’t kill nor injure his career (or body), but his subsequent social eccentricity under the microscope of celebrity life hasn’t worked wonders for it.
Hollywood laments the possibilities of the young actor claiming he’s squandered them because of the nonchalant attitude he shows his very public, shall we say, social aberrations. But, in true Shia fashion, he doesn’t care and dresses the part marvelously. Celeb fashion choices being closely monitored is nothing new, but generally, they fluctuate with trends, popularity, and the goldfish-esque attention span of gossip media, but Shia is a little different.
Firstly, when people look to judge streetwear choices of celebrities, they tend to approach it with a sort of human-to-god disdain. Celebrities are human beings, they wear clothing that’s not exclusively hand-picked by Tom Ford. So, like, honestly, who cares if some starlet is wearing her Lululemon sweatpants to buy an iced coffee, that’s literally what everyone else does, welcome to normalcy. There’s nothing special about it. Even Lady Gaga’s notoriously outlandish outfits on the red carpet and around town are only a spectacle for a moment and she’s the Queen of sartorial ostentation. LeBeouf’s style has consistently, as the New Yorker aptly puts it, “stirred interest not because it is outrageous but, rather, because it is just the slightest bit off–revealing in its small but significant diversion from the norm the underlying conventions that most of us adhere to, and opening a path to reconsider them anew.”
His eclectic combinations have garnered watchful attention with the inquisitive question: what is he going to do next? Even more gripping is the inconsistency of the answer to that question, both sartorially and in his acting career. Either way, we can’t look away as he trots around showing off his calves between hiked up sweatpants, Uggs, and a t-shirt that looks more like a gym rag than an item of clothing. You do you, Shia, because we know you will anyway.
