Harry Styles wearing a dress is joyful

Harry Styles! In a dress! On the cover of Vogue! Could there be a happier finale to this flop of a year? 

Making history as the first male ever to be given a solo Vogue cover, Styles looked resplendent on the front of US Vogue’s December issue in a frothy periwinkle blue Gucci gown paired with a black Gucci tuxedo jacket. And yet while most of us have marvelled at the general gloriousness of the imagery, there has been a right-wing backlash from those who evidently feel uncomfortable with such blurring of gender lines.

Commentator and Trump supporter Candace Owens took to Twitter to declare Style’s skirts “an outright attack” on masculinity. “There is no society that can survive without strong men,” she asserted. “The East knows this. In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence… Bring back manly men.”

For Owens to be so evidently ruffled by Styles’ Gucci ruffles is perhaps unsurprising for someone who’s carved a career from baiting and bashing, but given the regressive and ahistorical nature of her assertions, it’s important to set a few things straight.  

Firstly, Owens might want to brush up on her costume history, for men and skirts go way back. In fact, assigning skirt-wearing as a gendered pursuit belongs to the fairly recent past. Ancient Egyptian men wore wraps and loincloths, togas denoted class and status for the Romans and Greeks, while Scottish Highlanders, not famously lacking in the masculinity department, have been wearing kilts since the 16th century. In the East, an area where Owens seems convinced men know better than to shun trousers, there are several countries (India and Myanmar among them) where male dress centres on iterations of skirts and flowing robes to this day.

And Styles is by no means the first to toss the trews. David Bowie wore a floral gown on an album cover in the 70s, Kurt Cobain rocked Courtney Love’s floral dresses, while Iggy Pop, Kanye West, Vin Diesel, Diddy and Jared Leto have all rocked skirts and kilts with varying degrees of aplomb. Not forgetting, of course, Beckham in his sarong.

Photographed by rising star Tyler Mitchell in 1950’s-inspired tailoring, oversized JW Anderson coats and a line-up of brilliant skirts by Wales Bonner, Comme des Garçons and gender fluid British American designer Harris Reed, Styles’ shoot felt like a fitting celebration of the evolving conversation around gender fluid fashion and non-binary dressing, for which the 26-year-old, who identifies at cisgender, is fast becoming a poster boy.  

“Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with,” said Styles, who made his Met Gala debut last year in a black sheer lacy Gucci blouse accessorised with a single pearl earring. “What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away.”

But aside from history, what Owens really misses is that masculinity, like feminine identity, is not defined by an item of clothing, but by the individual and the individual alone. Harry is free to wear what he likes, when he likes, without others commenting on his male identity. As he tells Vogue, “When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play. It’s like anything—anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself. There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes.”

And honestly, what could be more joyous than super cool, sailor-tattooed Harry styles rocking a pink and white hooped Victoriana crinoline? I for one am very much on board.