On closer inspection, none of this is by mistake. “The best-dressed directors are particular about every detail,” Kourounian says. “They make every decision down to the costume design, so they’re constantly having conversations about fashion. I’m thinking of Wim Wenders’ love for Yohji Yamamoto.”

The German director even walked on the runway for his longtime friend Yamamoto and never shoots a film without one of the designer’s pieces, calling it his “second skin”. In one story, Wenders famously repurposed a Yohji jacket pocket himself so that it would fit his iPhone.

Long before Instagram accounts began cataloguing them, vintage photographs of filmmakers still carried a certain mystique. Author and journalist Natasha A Fraser, who has chronicled Hollywood for decades, recalls an image of Akira Kurosawa at the 1986 Oscars, flanked by Billy Wilder and John Huston. “I wanted his shades, his tuxedo,” she says. “His elegant confidence made an impression.” The Seven Samurai director also always cut a recognisable figure on set thanks to his trademark sunglasses and bucket hat.

“To the most successful directors, the set was their kingdom,” Fraser says. Legends like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Federico Fellini ruled through force of personality. Eye patches, severe suiting, broad-brimmed hats, distinctive frames – all now fawned over in archival imagery; all denoting charisma and power.

The tradition continues. Today, on-set photography is where some of the best looks continue being archived, and where younger directors are crafting their own mythologies through some genuinely cool looks. Recently, an image circulated of Sinners director Ryan Coogler waist deep in a lake wearing Columbia fishing gear. It’s such a cool outfit that it somehow steers the spotlight away from the man standing beside him, Michael B Jordan.

Josh Safdie, rarely seen without his New Balance sneakers, also hires a professional on-set photographer. His leather bomber jackets and sharp collars while shooting Marty Supreme feel deliberately referential, echoing Golden Age titans like Howard Hawks and John Ford. It’s almost as though directors realise these photographs will become circulated and mythologised for the future.

But their influence extends into other art forms, too. When discussing the topic with María Zardoya, lead singer of the Grammy-nominated band The Marías, she pointed to the fashions of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar as inspiration. Zardoya’s outfits for early album covers are even a direct nod to his style.

“His incomparable use of colour onscreen translates to his style off screen as well,” Zardoya says. “From wearing a full pink suit on the red carpet to subtle pops of red in silk scarves, it’s evident that Almodóvar sees the world as a beautiful, whimsical playground.”

Almodóvar stepped from behind the camera to front Prada’s autumn/winter campaign in 2017. Other fashion houses have caught on, replacing actors with filmmakers as the face of haute couture. If that 1990 shot of Ferrara is anything to go by, his collaboration with SAINT LAURENT is more than a perfect match: perhaps it was on known-cinephile Anthony Vaccarello’s mood boards.

But all the recent kudos is really an overdue acknowledgment. Because while audiences previously kept their eyes on the stars, it’s the directors who now burn brightest in the style stakes.