Never one to fade into the background, Julia Garner dove headfirst into silver surrealism—her red carpet debut as Shalla Bal turned heads, glinted lenses, and maybe even bent space-time.
On July 10, 2025, at London’s BFI IMAX Waterloo, Julia Garner arrived for the UK launch event of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, marking her first appearance on the film’s global press tour. Playing Shalla Bal—a powerful, cosmic variant of the Silver Surfer—Garner leaned into her character’s mythos with eerie precision, donning a fully sequinned Thom Browne gown from Spring 2017.
Originally seen on Janelle Monáe at the 2017 Virtuosos Tribute, the look once featured Browne’s signature trompe l’oeil tailoring. But for Garner, it was reborn: the shirt, tie, and waistcoat vanished in favor of a sheer, illusion-mesh bodice and sculpted bralette—suddenly more interstellar avatar than surrealist banker. The draped sequins cascaded in swirling arcs, mimicking planetary rings or maybe the wake of a silver surfboard cutting across galactic dust. The styling pulled no punches.
Garner’s cropped platinum hair was swept into an asymmetrical wave, catching the blue carpet lights like chrome. She wore Jessica McCormack’s Carmela Diamond Spaghettio earrings—a witty, twinkling nod to celestial orbits—giving the look its final cosmic punctuation.
Is this couture’s Blade Runner moment? Maybe. There’s something beautifully post-human in the way Garner wore the look—less a dress, more a transmission from the edge of fashion’s known universe. And yet, grounded. You could imagine a version of this ensemble gliding through a 1930s deco ballroom, or tucked into a Kraftwerk album sleeve. That’s the tension. That’s the thrill.
It’s not every day you see a rebooted Marvel heroine arrive on a carpet looking like a Bauhaus siren on sabbatical. But then again, Julia’s never played by Earth rules.
