Vogue recently announced that Harry Styles had travelled to Normandy where he had his portrait painted by the British artist David Hockney. It wasn’t the meeting of two cultural icons that caught my attention, or the fact that the unphased Hockney described the world’s biggest popstar as ‘just another person that came into the studio’, but instead it was Styles’s sartorial choices.
The gym bros I went to school with are downing a protein shake in pretty pearl necklaces
Styles has long been associated with the gender-bending fashion trend we have seen in recent years. From sheer pussybow blouses, dangly earrings, extravagant tulle dresses and what has become his go-to accessory, a pearl necklace, Styles is loud and proud about embracing femininity. He can get away with it. Not just because he’s a superstar but because he is beautiful and beautiful people can get away with almost anything.
Styles is undeniably a good-looking man. Show me someone that disagrees and I’ll show you a liar. But sitting in a wicker chair, face to face with David Hockney, in a bright striped cardigan and a chunky pearl necklace, Styles was dressed more like a primary school teacher than a rockstar. Of course, men wearing jewellery isn’t new. Blokes in ancient Egypt wore jewellery. And King Henry VIII’s collection would have made Kim Kardashian weep with envy. But never before has male ornamentation gone so mainstream. It’s inescapable, from established Hollywood royalty like Brad Pitt to actual royalty: one of Prince Harry’s complaints about his brother and future King was that he broke his necklace in a physical altercation.
In 2015, men’s fashion week was launched for the first time in New York and since then we have seen an increase in gender fluidity. After all, no one wants to see men in suits walk up and down the catwalk in cities across the world twice a year. Now, though, men’s jewellery is no longer reserved for Haute couture shows.
Styles was the first male cover star of American Vogue on the cover he donned a floor-length gown. Two years later Timothée Chalamet became the first male cover star for British Vogue. Following in Styles’s footsteps he too wore a pearl necklace, one that was usually favoured by 80-year-old widows at funerals. Someone needs to tell these boys that it really doesn’t look good.
When Ziggy Stardust pioneered sexual and sartorial fluidity in the 1970s, it was an act of rebellion against the establishment. Now it’s become so mainstream that you can get a pack of two pearl necklaces for men for £9.99 in H&M. The gym bros I went to school with are downing a protein shake in pretty pearl necklaces. The fashion designers and their muses are, of course, expected to push boundaries – but we have reached the final frontier – there are no more boundaries left. The lines have all been crossed. So, eventually, the pendulum will swing back. Who knows what that will look like; maybe we’ll see Sam Smith in a suit and tie. But here’s hoping the men will hang up their necklaces for good.
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