One More Night in Hollywood: Inside the 30th Anniversary GQ Men of the Year 2025

Welch kicked the dinner off with a toast to the issue’s many collaborators. “This is actually Stephen’s 137th GQ cover,” he noted. “One more, and I get to keep it!” Colbert replied.

Soon, the dinner crowd piled into the elevators to head downstairs for the main event in the hotel that garnished its reputation as a scandalous society playground in—guess when?—the ’90s. Before Jake Lenderman (aka MJ Lenderman) packed the lobby for a wistful rendition of ’90s Counting Crows anthem “A Long December,” he admitted that he’d never played in front of so many famous people.

Noted Walton Goggins, who started haunting the Chateau halls in ’94 or so, “There is no place that holds the psyche, that holds the memories in Los Angeles like the Chateau Marmont. It belongs to the ages…. I have stayed in maybe 25 of these rooms, but I never checked in as a guest, ever, until a couple of years ago,” he added with a wink behind his dark Neo-esque shades.

Every lap of the party was like an exercise in pop culture Mad Libs. Hailey Bieber linked up with Kendall Jenner and Tyriq Withers near the caviar bar in the garden; Offset confabbed with fellow ATLien Young Thug; Noah Baumbach posted up at the bar with Alexander Skarsgaard; Amelia Gray squealed as she ran up on Gabbriette, Zack Bia, and Iris Law; Nettspend fanned out with Shaboozey and Alton Mason; Kun dominated the dance floor; Pusha T waded through a crowd of admirers (including Anderson .Paak and A$AP Ferg) to dap up André 3000, who was kicking it with a skater crowd of Tyshawn Jones and Evan Mock; the cast of I Love LA passed out shots to everyone in their exuberant orbit.

Ironically, it was Gen-Z who had the most romantic takes on the theme of the night. Bieber wasn’t the only one who nailed a vintage reference: Sweeney glittered in a crushed velvet gown from 1995 by Versace (Gianni, that is); not to be outdone, Quenlin Blackwell arrived in a red velvet Tom Ford–era Gucci tuxedo made famous by Gwyneth Paltrow before changing into a Spring 1996 Mugler suit to cohost the red carpet.

Tom Ford was the king of the ’90s runway, so it was fitting that current Tom Ford creative director (and 2025 GQ designer of the year) Haider Ackermann also ruled the evening. Ackermann held court in front of the DJ booth all night with a rotating cast of friends and admirers whom he dressed in his sensual eveningwear for the event, including Oscar Isaac, Sombr, Amelia Gray, Olivia Rodrigo, and Patrick Schwarzenegger, who flexed in his leather moto set, declaring, “I feel kind of like my dad, Terminator style.”

“It's not about dressing celebrities tonight,” Ackermann said. “There’s an elegance in everyone that I’m dressing, there’s a gesture, there's a swag. And they make it their own. That's what I love about it, because I hope I’m not dressing you, I hope that you feel just comfortable in my clothes and that you feel yourself.”

Ackermann was less concerned with nailing literal ’90s references. “Back in the ’90s I lost myself in the nightlife, so there's not much I remember,” he joked.

Around 10:00 p.m., Clipse gave the crowd a second wind it didn’t know it needed with a spirited performance of three singles from their Album of the Year Grammy-nominated project Let God Sort Em Out, with “F.I.C.O.” ringing off inside the Chateau the hardest. But even a top-of-his-game King Push can get starstruck in a room like that. “I met SZA’s mom and dad, and I did not know SZA's dad is from Richmond, Virginia!” Pusha said. “That was cool.”

Eventually, everyone tumbled outside into the garden, the Gen-Z River Phoenixes crowding by the bar as a quizzical John C. Reilly, black bowler cap perched on his head, looked on.

“Man,” he said, “I thought the theme was 1890s!”

Additional reporting by Frazier Tharpe.