Thomas Doherty might be wearing a kilt the next time you see him.
The Tell Me Lies star, 29, is posing proudly in a vintage ’90s Raf Simmons black sweater, black Helmut Lang boots and a bold blue tartan kilt for a photographer in an eighth-floor room at the Bowery Hotel on Monday, Dec. 9. There’s just under ninety minutes before he kicks off a holiday bash at New York City’s hottest new restaurant, the Corner Store, to celebrate the debut of the Glenlivet tartan.
“I stand differently,” Doherty tells PEOPLE. “It’s almost like in our DNA, in our genetics, as a Scottish man — or woman. There’s a sense of pride in the kilt and then wearing the kilt. Yeah, it just does something to me.”
“Every clan and every family in Scotland has a tartan. This is the Glenlivet one which is really cool and an honor to wear,” he says, pointing out the details in the Locharron of Scotland kilt that represent the whisky and Glenlivet’s “tartan colors.”
“Coming from Scotland and having such a love for my culture and for my country and for what we’ve created and what we’ve given to the world…. It feels good.”
As the photographer continues snapping shots, the Edinburgh native fixes his hair in the mirror, charmingly pretends to take a phone call on a landline plastered with the tartan pattern and fits in a bite of burger and fries as he continues posing. In the background, a playlist ranging from Florence and the Machine to Sam Fender is playing through a speaker.
He is also, of course, sipping on a glass of Glenlivet Single Malt Scotch Whiskey. “Being from Scotland, being Scottish, loving the Glenlivet — it’s what I grew up with,” he says. “It’s so nostalgic. It reminds me of my uncles and my dad, and my whole family, really. It’s my uncles’ go-to beverage of choice, always. It smells like home.”
Since walking into the hotel room, the actor’s love for kilts is evident. He mentions to me more than once how keen he is to wear the traditional garment more often. “I was saying to you earlier, it’d be so cool if you could just wear a kilt every day.”
Jewelry is another one of his loves. “I like smaller jewelry, like dainty jewelry, I don’t really like the thick stuff, so that’s definitely my go-to. And silver.”
“I’ve always got my pinkie ring on and I’ll always have a little bracelet on,” Doherty continues, before pulling a dainty chain out from under the Raf Simmons sweater. “And I do have this necklace here. This is actually made by my really good friend George Williams.”
He keeps it tucked under the sweater all night, though. “I don’t want it to be too much. I want the centerpiece to be the kilt.”
“Everything’s black — black boots, black top, and having [the kilt] as the centerpiece. I think we did a good job.”
The “we” he’s referring to is his stylist Bailey Moon — “I love Bailey,” Doherty says — and groomer Jessica Ortiz, who is also watching the photoshoot happen — and runs her fingers through the actor’s hair a few times throughout the night to freshen it up.
“We wanted his hair to also he downtown New York vibe” of his outfit, Ortiz tells PEOPLE, “so we did a little more rock n’ roll, tousled, kind of a little gritty look.”
Doherty’s trust in Ortiz is clear after close to a year of working together. He admits he does “nothing” in particular to prep before an event and rather lets Ortiz take the reigns. “It’s just amazing. I get the full works.”
(On a regular night, though, Doherty keeps it “very simple,” he says — but his routine does involve both a Dior serum and a Dior moisturizer.)
In reality, there’s not all that much to it, as skin-wise Ortiz keeps it pretty simple. “It’s always clean and a little bronze with some contouring to support this beautiful bone structure that he has,” she says. “The jaw is popping, the cheekbones are popping.”
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When the topic of his impressive jawline comes up, Doherty plays coy, joking that Ortiz gets his skin right for him once she arrives.
He eventually concedes: “The jawline and the Scottish accent, it’s connected. Yeah, it does me well.”
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