A decade ago, a handful of gritty arthouse roles transformed Ryan Gosling—a capital-M, Oscar-nominated Movie Star—into the poster boy for a certain kind of brooding silver screen archetype. Like Alain Delon and Steve McQueen before him, Gosling’s on-screen personas became larger than life, as did the signature looks that defined them. (For Delon it was a trench coat, for McQueen it was a Harrington jacket, for Gosling it was a certain scorpion-adorned souvenir jacket that’s become meme canon as a symbol of “sigma male” aspirations.) Off screen, however, Gosling often seems less interested in appearing overtly rebellious, instead favoring just-swervy-enough style choices that regular guys can emulate. Sure, he might wear a teal and purple Gucci suit on a red carpet, but on the day-to-day he’s more likely to show up in a sweater vest, trucker jacket, slim jeans, and his favorite pair of Red Wing Moc Toe boots.
But recently, the stylistic lines between Gosling the actor and Gosling the man have begun to blur. Earlier this year, in the Netflix action blockbuster The Gray Man, his spy-on-the-run character lifts a pair of said Red Wings off Chris Evans and wears them for the rest of the film. On its own, a one-off case of RyGo rocking his go-to everyday boots on screen wouldn’t really be noteworthy, but now it seems to be a regular occurrence. This past week he was spotted wearing the shoes again, this time on the set of The Fall Guy, an upcoming movie based on the 1980s TV show of the same name.
Unlike the idealized grunge badass he portrayed in The Place Beyond the Pines, the version of Gosling The Fall Guy depicts is a more real-world dresser, albeit one with similarly blue collar leanings. In addition to a sand suede version of the boots, his latest on-screen fit consists of a Caterpillar trucker cap, an IATSE union tee, and ripped jeans. (It’s worth mentioning that Gosling was also seen wearing a Tag Heuer watch, but that’s almost certainly more a case of contractual obligation than pure style choice.) On the flip side, it’s hard to imagine Red Wing—a historic yet relatively small privately-owned shoemaker out of Minnesota—paying watch deal money for the consistent product placement.
Whether this is simply good luck or the result of Gosling convincing multiple costume designers that his characters should wear his favorite boots, it’s hard to argue with the footwear’s bona fides. Red Wing’s moc toes have been around for over 70 years and remain one of the sturdiest, reliably handsome boots on the market—whether you’re a guy building your style persona around being “literally him” or just looking for shoes that’ll hold up to real-world action better than almost any others.
Jake Woolf
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