Golden Globes 2020: Billy Porter’s most iconic red carpet looks

Google’s most searched red carpet star of the past year wasn’t a Hollywood bombshell, but a 50-year-old man.

Billy Porter, a Broadway veteran turned breakout star of the TV series “Pose,” took the style scene by storm in 2019, blurring gender lines and consistently making headlines.

“How we enter the carpet, at least during awards season … it’s a performance,” Porter’s stylist Sam Ratelle tells The Post. “He’s an actor. He really tells stories through clothing. We come from theater, so the carpet becomes a stage.”

His next stage is the Golden Globes on Sunday night — Porter is nominated in the Actor in a TV Drama category. Ratelle can’t reveal much about what Porter will wear to this year’s show, but he does say the get-up will be “quite royal” and “will symbolize hope and triumph and humanity.”

Ratelle, a 31-year-old Upper West Side resident, began working with Porter about two years ago through Ratelle’s husband, Porter’s former publicist.

“It’s extremely collaborative,” Ratelle says of the pair’s process, which he says resulted in more than 400 looks in 2019 alone. “Your clients aren’t always excited by the [fashion] business itself. He is.”

Ratelle creates mood boards and Porter sometimes sends him links to runway looks he’s interested in before they bring in a designer for any given event. Many designers began clamoring to work with them after Porter’s Golden Globes ensemble went viral last year.

“It started getting easier and easier,” says Ratelle, who now plans Porter’s outfits about six months in advance.

Ratelle says Porter’s off-duty personal style is really what you see on the carpet — he’s never not decked out. He became the most influential star on the red carpet by being himself.

As the world waits with bated breath for Porter’s 2020 Golden Globes look, Ratelle breaks down Porter’s five most iconic fashion moments so far.

Cut a caper

Ratelle recalls that when he first started working with Porter, the actor told him, “I just want to wear capes!”

So naturally, Porter showed up to the 2019 Golden Globes in an embroidered houndstooth suit and champagne cape with pink lining by Randi Rahm. Originally, they had hoped to complement the look with a pair of Saint Laurent pumps that were basically the “Wizard of Oz” slippers with heels. But the designer didn’t make them large enough for Porter, who wears a size 13 in women’s shoes. (“At the time … nobody would lend us heels,” adds Ratelle). So the stylist opted for a Gucci loafer paired with stockings to reference the Georgian era instead. “Men wore pumps and white stockings and encrusted gear and wigs and powdered faces, and nobody looked at them crazy,” says Ratelle.

Luxe tux

Ratelle says he pulled together Porter’s unforgettable outfit for the 2019 Oscars in just two weeks, after the star was asked at the last minute to host the ABC pre-show. Porter hadn’t even tried it on until that day. The Christian Siriano velvet tuxedo gown was complemented by an Oscar Heyman 20-carat yellow diamond ring, and the styling was inspired by a Renoir painting known as “Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children.”

There was debate over whether Porter should go shirtless under the bolero and show décolletage. “Eventually the decision [was] to wear the shirt because that’s the statement that makes it masculine and feminine,” says Ratelle. “Otherwise, it would’ve just been very, very feminine.”

Fit for a queen

“Pose” boss Ryan Murphy suggested that Porter should bring a bounty of costume changes to the 2019 Met Gala in order to wear every look from Diana Ross’ famous photo shoot montage in “Mahogany.” Porter instead specifically homed in on Ross’ Cleopatra costume from the film, as he sported a decadent Egyptian number from NYC designers the Blonds that also referenced Elizabeth Taylor’s version of the queen.

With less than two weeks until the ball, Ratelle got the go-ahead from the team at Vogue to have Porter brought in on a palanquin by six male members of the Broadway community.

“I was like, ‘If you’re going to do this right, you have to be carried,’ ” says Ratelle. “Because kings and queens don’t walk.”

Reproduction construction

Porter’s Celestino Couture ensemble for the 2019 Tonys intentionally recalled a woman’s reproductive system — with fallopian tube detailing on the train — as a pro-choice message. The material itself was also of personal significance to Porter, as the approximately 30 feet of red fabric was repurposed from an actual curtain from his Broadway hit “Kinky Boots,” then covered with 30,000 Swarovski crystals.

“We had to clean it. It was full of dust. We had to take it apart…” says Ratelle. “Imagine this massive theater curtain going into my New York City apartment.”

Take ’em to church

Inspired by Porter’s dreams of becoming a disco star, his Michael Kors pinstripe suit at the Emmys featured 130,000 crystals and was a custom derivative of a white suit that Porter singled out from Kors’ recent resort collection.

For Porter, the hat — designed by Stephen Jones and inspired by one worn by a dancer in the film “My Fair Lady” — was a nod to church ladies’ headgear.

“His mother was a church-going woman, and he constantly references a lot of the hats that he wears as an homage to where he came from,” says Ratelle.