Gwendoline Christie, best known for playing Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones, stepped out onto the navy blue carpet at the 2025 Fashion Awards in London with what many viewers called one of the most bewildering beauty choices of the night:
An aggressively sculpted cotton-cloud of hair sitting like a helmet atop her head that quickly became the internet’s latest punching bag.
The 47-year-old actress appeared unfazed as she posed in front of cameras at the Royal Albert Hall, but social media erupted with mockery.
“She probably has a habitat in that hair,” one commenter wrote. “A new home for lice.”
Gwendoline Christie surprised viewers by wearing an exaggerated cotton-cloud hairdo to the 2025 Fashion Awards
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The theme of the evening was bold beauty, with Hollywood waves and punk-inspired eyeliner battling it out across faces and scalps.
But while stars like Grammy-nominated singer Raye and legendary supermodel Iman wowed with refined 1950s-inspired hairdos, Christie’s cloud of frizz stuck out, in the eyes of many, like a sore thumb.
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“Her hair got caught in a cotton candy machine,” one person joked.
“It’s the kind of hairstyle you get after napping in a jet engine,” another added.
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Some viewers questioned whether the look was intended to be satirical:
“Looks like the hair on the plastic Troll dolls that sat on the end of a pencil from the 90’s,” one wrote.
While others accused her of trying too hard:
“Rather sad. She’s obviously desperate for attention,” another said. “People need to tell celebrities ‘no’ more frequently.”
The hairstyle was meant to be a homage to Comme des Garçons, an avant-garde Japanese fashion house
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But behind the chaos was a calculated creative vision, at least according to stylist Lachlan Mackie.
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Mackie defended his choice, explaining that the hairdo wasn’t random, but a deliberate homage to Comme des Garçons, the avant-garde Japanese fashion label known for embracing dissonance and distortion in their creations.
Founded in 1969 by designer Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons has long pushed fashion beyond the realm of beauty into conceptual art.
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The brand often rejects symmetry in favor of bold silhouettes and provocation. In Kawakubo’s words, the goal is not to make clothes that are fashionable, but clothes that “make people think.”
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Standing at 6’3″ Gwendoline Christie has long commanded attention with her sheer physical presence. But in recent years, she’s pushed that presence into avant-garde territory.
She has since collaborated with publications like Perfect Magazine, embracing elaborate, boundary-defying looks.
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For instance, in a September 2024 issue, she appeared as a ghostly doll-like figure draped in structured layers of white, blue corsetry, and glossy textures.
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Mackie, a rising name in editorial and runway styling, felt that Christie’s brand seamlessly aligned with the Japanese designer’s ethos.
Online, viewers likened the exaggerated, voluminous hair to recent Marc Jacobs runways, where similar gravity-defying frizz have made appearances.
Christie’s gearing up for major roles in two highly anticipated projects, including her expanded role on Netflix’s Wednesday
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First is Black Gold, a six-part German-language drama that explores the tensions unleashed in a small village following the discovery of oil.
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Christie stars alongside The Luminaries actor Marton Csokas as Emma Robertson, a British prospector entangled in a power struggle between a wealthy landowning family and a group of farmers.
The show boasts an international cast and a score composed by two-time Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer, joined by violinist Aleksey Igudesman.
She will also return in an expanded role for season two of Netflix’s Wednesday, reprising her character Principal Larissa Weems.
“Sometimes you fall in love with a character, and you don’t want to stop playing them,” the actress said about returning to Wednesday.
She added that rejoining the cast was a pleasure. “I was so thrilled to come back and work again with this wonderful cast. It is such a pleasure for me to be a part of this emotional world, this imaginative world,” she said.
“Desperate.” Some viewers weren’t impressed by Christie’s look
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