How Kristen Stewart Crafted Her ‘Sophisticated but Rebellious’ Cannes Style—According to Stylist Tara Swennen

Reported by Vogue.

Kristen Stewart has been showing up to Cannes since 2012, and at this point, her presence on the Croisette is as much a fixture as the Palme d'Or itself. But what makes her red carpet tenure genuinely interesting isn't just the clothes — it's the controlled tension between polish and subversion that stylist Tara Swennen has been engineering for over a decade. "I love Cannes because it's a world stage," Swennen tells Vogue. "Besides the Oscars — where there's a little restraint — Cannes nurtures a mixture of glamour, art, and beauty. People really take the opportunity to go big."

This year, Stewart was in town for the Quentin Dupieux film Full Phil, alongside Woody Harrelson and Emma Mackey, and she arrived with two Chanel looks that delivered exactly what you'd expect from a woman who once pulled off her Louboutins mid-carpet. As a longtime face of the house, both outfits came directly from Matthieu Blazy's vision — and according to Swennen, that alignment is intentional. "He's really loosened Chanel up," she says. "The tweeds are a little lighter, the tailoring is slouchier. That is very much the arena Kristen likes to live in."

The Illusion, The Gown, The Sneakers

For the photo call, Stewart wore a sheer gray "tweed" top and skirt from Chanel's spring 2026 couture collection — frayed edges, jeweled buttons, and an optical illusion of near-total transparency that was actually built over boy shorts and a delicate camisole. That evening, she pivoted to a red and black knit Chanel gown from the fall 2026 collection, complete with crochet leaf detailing and a red lip — a rarity for Stewart, and one that landed particularly well against her new pixie cut. Chanel High Jewelry, including a tiny red timepiece, closed the look. Both outfits were finished with sneakers — Nike and Converse, pulled straight from Stewart's own closet. "We wanted a youthful and effortless vibe grounded in real movement, rather than polished perfection," says Swennen. "Sophisticated, but also a bit rebellious."

The sneaker choice isn't incidental — Cannes still enforces a dress code that technically discourages flat shoes, sheerness, and voluminous silhouettes. Swennen isn't dismissive of the rules, but she's not intimidated by them either. "If people remain polished, I think the rules are malleable," she says. "It's nice that there's a loosening up. People should feel free to promote their art and be authentic to themselves." Having styled Stewart since she was 14, Swennen clearly knows how to thread that needle: structure with an exit route, glamour with an escape hatch. "She looks her best when the clothes feel instinctive," says Swennen. "She never wants to feel over-rehearsed."

Cannes may be wrapping, but the summer isn't. Stewart is set to preside over the Biarritz Nouvelles Vagues Festival in late June — with virtual fittings already underway, the vibe reportedly "French Cruise" — and she'll also be promoting her wife Dylan Meyer's film The Wrong Girls while working on a new TV project. The takeaway: when the clothes feel like they belong to the person wearing them, not the other way around, that's when style actually works.

Read the original at Vogue.