“He’s the image of a new era, of the way that a man can look,” Gucci’s Alessandro Michele declared. Styles explained, “I find myself looking at women’s clothes, thinking they’re amazing… There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never thought too much about what it means – it just becomes this extended part of creating something.”
I’ve always thought that blokes are missing out in the clothes department. We women get it so much better in terms of colour, playfully inventive cuts and embellishments. Poor blokes, especially in this land. Traditionally they’ve got the choice of sober suits, baggy shorts and the oddity that’s the tie (I mean seriously, what is the point of that one, in this day and age in particular? Are we over it yet?)
I love to see a young guy wearing nail polish or eyeliner or lipstick, particularly a heterosexual one. The shock of the brazenness, the don’t-care boldness is just so damned sexy. To be so self-assured, so comfortable with who you are. Mick Jagger wore a white dress for a Rolling Stones performance in 1969, Kurt Cobain in the ’90s a mumsy floral dress. Playfulness and joy; love it in a boy and even more so in a man.
To be honest, I’ve always been a little wary of the diehard alpha male. There’s so often the whiff of a lack of confidence to all the posturing, an unsettling kind of overcompensating; and of course it can lead, as we well know, to toxic masculinity. A desire for domination and control; a refusal to see the world from anyone else’s perspective. Give me a confident, grounded beta any day. Love the non-threatening energy. It’s seductive, inclusive, and right now it feels like the future.
“To me, he [Styles] is very modern,” says film director Olivia Wilde, his current girlfriend. “I hope that this brand of confidence as a male that Harry has – truly devoid of any traces of toxic masculinity – is indicative of his generation and therefore the future of the world. I think he’s in many ways championing that, spearheading that. It’s pretty powerful and kind of extraordinary to see someone in his position redefining what it can mean to be a man with confidence.”
Styles explains, “When you take away ‘there’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women’, once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up an arena where you can play… anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself.”
It all reminds me of a minor media kerfuffle last year around Year 12 leaving festivities. Two boys from Sydney Grammar School wanted to host a private party after their formal. Yet Covid rules decreed the only way they could get around number restrictions was to get married. So they organised a commitment ceremony, in a backyard, for the day of their formal. The cunning party plan was thwarted in the end by the parents, but it made worldwide news.
Big business took note. Fred Schebesta, multimillionaire co-founder of the website Finder, quickly offered the boys internships. “Entrepreneurialism is all about challenges and taking calculated risks,” he explained at the time. “It’s about jumping into the unknown and disrupting the traditional ways of doing things.” This all feels like a fresh new breed of masculinity – comfortable with themselves and others, open-hearted, thinking outside the box – and I for one am taking note.
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Ballgown. Lace. Nail polish. Pearls. A multitude of rings. That’s British pop star Harry Styles, in US Vogue recently. Former boyfriend of the likes of Kendall Jenner and Taylor Swift and what a glorious sight he was, resplendent in his Gucci gown. That is one man completely comfortable with his (hetero) sexuality. Styles was the storied magazine’s first ever male cover star; the embodiment of a fresh, confident, in-touch-with-your-feminine-side masculinity. No self-esteem issues here.