As we celebrate #NationalHonestyDay, it's time to be honest about how good Harry Styles looks in a dress.
Separate from his music, the barriers Harry has broken in recent years in terms of men's fashion have been extraordinary.
Here are some of Style's most gender-fluid styles over the years. While there are many more fashionable moments than those listed below, these are the ones that truly took our breath away.
There were so many looks to love in Harry Styles's fabulously polarizing Vogue photoshoot. This signature kilt and jacket set was an immediate favorite, mostly due to the outfit, but also partially due to the blissful expression of calm on his face.
"There's so much joy to be had in playing with clothes," Styles told the publication. "I've never really thought too much about what it means – it just becomes this extended part of creating something."
Seeing Harry Styles in a tutu is always a cathartic experience (see the SNL promo below), mostly because he makes the style look so effortless. When he donned the Harris Reed crinoline in his Vogue photoshoot, he did so with a relaxed look of nonchalance.
Harry's hands candidly rest in front of him as a gentle breeze blows through his luscious locks and puffs up his tutu-zoot-suit combo. All the while, Styles didn't even crack a smile, gazing at the camera with a look of "who cares?"
The 2020 Brit Awards
While performing the Fine Line deep-cut "Falling" at last year's Brit Awards, Harry rocked the hell out of an all-lace, sparkling white jumpsuit. Harry grips the microphone tenderly as he croons, his ruffled sleeves and matching white gloves inspired by Prince's eclectic outfits. And let's not forget those fabulous suspenders and gorgeous pearl necklace that tied it all together.
One of his most revered outfits, the 2019 Met Gala was a big fashion year for Styles and was when the mainstream media took notice of the singer's gorgeous gender-fluid fashion sense. He embraced the Gala's "Camp" theme with a gorgeous Victorian-inspired Gucci top, complimented with ruffles, tailored ultra-high-waisted pants, and his esteemed blue and pink manicure.
Capital FM's Jingle Bell Ball 2019
At 2019's Capital FM Jingle Bell Ball, Styles performed some of his hits in a glamorous navy blue denim jumpsuit and a shiny pair of white boots. Unbuttoned down to his belly, the outfit sparkled in the spotlight as Styles gripped the microphone with his pink and yellow nails.
Does anyone rock a pink tutu better than Harry Styles? It's debatable. In a promo image for his performance and hosting of SNL back in 2019, Styles can be seen twirling in an intricately designed pink tutu. With champagne in hand, he dangles a cigarette from his mouth as he bares his tattoos and flutters towards the stars.
Our floral patterned king is back with a new video for "Golden," one of the songs off Fine Lines, his debut album released last December.
As winter quickly approaches and most of us are forced to remain at home more than ever, the visuals for "Golden" come as a breath of fresh, warm, sea air. The video opens on Harry Styles running through a tunnel in a mostly-unbuttoned white shirt and a pair of pastel shorts. As he exits the tunnel, singing the opening lines to "Golden," we catch a glimpse of a breath-taking mountainous view. Harry Styles, androgynous fashion, and a beautiful view? What more could you ask for?
Directed by Ben and Gabe Turner, "Golden" was filmed along the Amalfi Coast, and it certainly makes the most of this scenic setting. We see Styles dashing through leafy trellises, picturesque homes on the side of cliffs, and even a bridge overlooking the ocean. Styles spends the entire video gazing directly into the camera, making the viewer feel like he's singing the song directly to them as they frolic with the former One-Directioner on the coast of Italy.
Personally, we feel that three-and-a-half minutes of pretending to be on vacation with Harry Styles is just what the doctor ordered to get us through the last few days before the election.
As always when it comes to Harry Styles, there are plenty of iconic outfits throughout the video. Our favorite is when Styles, singing in a bright blue lagoon, appears topless in a pair of wide leg, high waisted floral trousers and a yellow bucket hat. He raises his arms and closes his eyes, as if embodying the image of golden sunshine his song evokes. Later, he lays coquettishly on a vintage car, batting his eyelashes at the driver as he rocks a pair of plaid bell bottoms, a linen blazer, and lace gloves.
As is only appropriate given the name, "Golden" is already certified gold in the US.
Styles is hopeful that the new video will help to distract people from the difficult realities of the world right now. He told AP Entertainment in an interview, "It's one of the first songs when I was making the album and it's always been a source of joy for me. And I wanted to make a video that encapsulated that. I'd like to think it will maybe cheer a couple of people up. Cheered me up."
While we don't feel too bad for Styles, given that he spent much of this summer soaking up the sun in Italy, 2020 has still been full of plenty of disappointments for the 26-year-old. Like so many artists, he was forced to delay his 2020 tour (Love on Tour) on account of the global health situation.
When asked about the delay, Styles said, "I don't think anyone wants to be putting on a tour before it's safe to do so. There will be a time we dance again, but until then I think it's about protecting each other and doing everything we can to be safe. And then when it's ready and people want to, we shall play music."
Still, Harry Styles has more in store for fans before the end of the year. According to Rolling Stone, "On the one-year anniversary of Fine Line, Styles will release a limited edition vinyl box set which will feature a Fine Line at the Forum lyrics zine and 10 photo prints of Styles, photographed by Tim Walker (who shot the original album cover)."
Until then, we can all try to satiate our need for more Harry by watching the "Golden" video over and over again.
We're entering week bajillion of social distancing, meaning many people haven't felt the warm touch of another human being in a very long time.
Some days that feels pretty manageable–enjoyable, even. After all, why shave in quarantine? Your cat isn't going to mind rubbing up against your cactus-calf in bed. But on other days, like the days we watch Normal People on Hulu or the day Jake Gyllenhaal posted that video where he tried to put a shirt on while upside down, it's excruciating.
Unfortunately, even with some states starting to lift some social distancing guidelines, it's going to be a long time before touching one another freely (with consent, of course) is acceptable. As we all waste away on our couches and basically get engaged to our respective vibrators, Harry Styles decided to make our state-enforced celibacy all the more challenging by dropping a brand new music video for his hit song "Watermelon Sugar."
The three-minute long video is basically a compilation of technicolored shots of Styles touching and being touched by beautiful, sun-kissed humans. There is so much touching in the video that Styles literally dedicated it to "touching."
Harry Styles, YouTube
We see goose bumps rise on bare bellies as hands skim along them, we see multiple women making faces of ecstatic pleasure, we see Styles in a sea of writhing, gorgeous bodies all reaching to caress him. The video is unabashedly sensual, with watermelon serving as a not-very-subtle innuendo. The whole thing feels like a quarantine-mania fueled dream of everything that this summer won't have: time spent in crowded public places, the messy sharing of food, and touching. It practically feels like Harry is mocking us, painting a delicious looking portrait of what we can't have. But then again, perhaps it's good motivation to continue to socially isolate. The better we socially isolate now, the more quickly we can get back to normal life. And who knows, maybe post-quarantine life will mean messy, fruit-filled beach parties full of beautiful people for all of us, right?
Watch at your own risk.
Harry Styles - Watermelon Sugar (Official Video)www.youtube.com
Stevie Nicks posted a sweet note on Twitter today, encouraging fans to stay strong during the COVID-19 pandemic.
— (@)
In it, she gave Harry Styles possibly the best compliment imaginable. She compared his recent LP, Fine Line, to Rumours, the legendary and perpetually relevant Fleetwood Mac classic.
"I am getting all my paintings and drawing out - listening to music (mostly Harry Styles' "Fine Line") and being inspired by him to write some new songs and poetry. Way to go H - it is your Rumours..." she wrote, essentially confirming that Harry Styles is also a witch. Clearly, their friendship must be fueled by some secret esoteric knowledge, if not genuine magical abilities.
While calling Fine Line Harry's Rumours may be a bit of stretch—it's Rumours, after all, the most healing, bitter, glorious breakup album of all time—if Stevie said it, we have no choice but to agree. Styles' effervescent, psychedelic pop is sonically distinct from Rumours, but, on the other hand, songs like "She," "Falling," and "Cherry" definitely share some of the Fleetwood Mac classic's folky, slow-burning emotional resonance.
Nicks also gave fans some more general tips, writing them out in a way that resembles a spell. "My advice for all this free time and terrible news is - Just dance - This will pass - Love will find a way - It always does," she wrote in a spirally, witchy font.
This seems like as worthy an incantation as anything else that's being passed around these days (other than good old social distancing and mutual aid). During this uncertain time when many people are trapped in their homes, lots of us are seeking new rituals and old magic in order to make it through and grow into a new and more loving future. Nicks' spell, complete with loving, dancing, and some escapism via Styles' saccharine tunes, may be the quarantine potion we need.
Fine Line
Rumours (Deluxe Edition)
HARRY STYLES - Landslide ft Stevie Nicks live in Los Angeles (13/12/2019 - The Forum)www.youtube.com
With his two solo albums, Harry Styles has proven that he was always One Direction's strongest link.
The boy band's final performance in 2015 opened the doors for Styles to come into his own. Turns out, his solo artistic persona is pretty chameleonic. He channels classic rock as easily as he does pop and R&B. He can deliver soaring ballads with the same energy he devotes to high-energy barnburners. All of this is to say: Styles is a singular talent with a versatile voice and an undeniable charisma that multiplies his appeal.
Though his original work is typically great, Styles has also performed numerous impressive renditions of other artists' hits. From '70s folk to modern hits, we've rounded up the ex-1D member's best covers.
Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”
Joni Mitchell's biggest hit got another breath of life when it was covered by Counting Crows in 2002. Though the band gave the environmentally-conscious tune a more adult alternative spin, Styles takes it back to its singer-songwriter origins with a fully acoustic setup. The harmony during the chorus adds a special touch.
The story of psychedelics is intertwined with the story of music, and tracing their relationship can feel like going in circles.
For thousands of years, artists have been using naturally-grown herbs to open their minds and enhance their creative processes. Since LSD was synthesized by Albert Hoffman in 1938, psychedelics have experienced a reemergence, blooming into a revolution in the 1960s, launching dozens of genres and sounds that focused on acid, shrooms, and all of the portals they opened. Around the 1960s, scientists also began studying the relationship between psychedelics and music, and even back then, researchers found that, when combined, music and psychedelics could have therapeutic effects on patients.
More modern studies have discovered that LSD, specifically, links a portion of the brain called the parahippocampal—which specializes in personal memory—to the visual cortex, which means that memories take on more autobiographical and visual dimensions. Other studies have found that LSD can make the timbres and sounds of music feel more meaningful and emotionally powerful. Today, psychedelic music still thrives, and you can hear flickers of those early trip-inspired experiences all across today's modern musical landscape.
"There is a message intrinsically carried in music, and under the effects of psychedelics, people seem to become more responsive to this," said the psychedelic researcher Mendel Kaelen. "Emotion can be processed more deeply. It's a beautiful narrative. It's like a snake biting itself in the tail."
All that said, psychedelics can be as dangerous as the archetypal live-fast-die-young rock and roller's average lifestyle. They can destabilize already fragile minds and can encourage further drug abuse and reckless behavior. Often, psychedelic revolutions have coincided with colonialist fetishizations, apocalyptic visions, and appropriations of Eastern culture.
However, sometimes psychedelics and musical talent can come together in a synergy so perfect that it can literally create transcendent and healing experiences. Hallucinogens affected each of these following musicians in a unique way, but their experiences with hallucinogens produced some of the greatest music of all time.
Harry Styles — She
In his revelatory Rolling Stone profile, Harry Styles spoke out about how magic mushrooms inspired his most recent album, Fine Line. Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the 25-year-old apparently spent a lot of time at Shangri-La Studios in Los Angeles tripping and listening to the old psychedelic greats.
"Ah, yes. Did a lot of mushrooms here," he said in the interview during a tour of the studio. "We'd do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney's Ram in the sunshine."
Things even got a little violent, as they often can when dealing with hallucinogens. "This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place," he reminisced affectionately.
Kacey Musgraves' dreamy song "Slow Burn" was apparently inspired by an acid trip. Listening to the lyrics, you can hear the influence of psychedelics twining with country and singer-songwriter tropes. "I was sitting on the porch, you know, having a good, easy, zen time," she said of the songwriting experience, which she said happened out on her porch one evening. "I wrote it down on my phone, and then wrote the songs the next day with a sober mind."
LSD, she said, "opens your mind in a lot of ways. It doesn't have to be scary. People in the professional worlds are using it, and it's starting to become an option for therapy. Isn't that crazy?" Her affection for the drug also appears in her song "Oh What A World," which contains the lyric, "Plants that grow and open your mind."
A$AP Rocky — L$D
While A$AP Rocky's affection for LSD isn't a surprise given his propensity for writing about the drug, apparently the rapper has an intellectual approach to his psychedelic experimentation.
"We was all in London at my spot, Skeppy came through," he told Hot New Hip Hop about his experience writing LSD. "I have this psychedelic professor, he studies in LSD. I had him come through and kinda record and monitor us to actually test the product while being tested on. We did the rhymes all tripping balls."
Apparently his first acid trip happened in 2012. "Okay, without getting anyone in trouble, I was with my homeboy and some trippy celebrity chicks and…" he said in an interview with Time Out. When asked how long it lasted, he said, "Too long, man. Twenty-three hours. I was trippin' till the next day. When I woke up, I was like, Damn! I did that shit! That shit was dope. It was so amazing. It was a-ma-zing. Nothing was like that first time."
Acid changed his entire approach to music and success. "I never really gave a f*ck, man, but this time, I really don't give a f*ck," he said. "I don't care about making no f*cking hits." Instead, he focuses on creating. "It's so hard to be progressive when you're trippin' b*lls," he said. "You make some far-out shit!"
The Beatles' later music is essentially synonymous with LSD, and the band members often spoke out about their unique experiences with the drug. According to Rolling Stone, the first time that Lennon and Harrison took it was actually a complete accident. A friend put LSD in their coffee without their knowledge, and initially Lennon was furious. But after the horror and panic faded, things changed. "I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours," said Harrison.
Paul McCartney had similar revelations. LSD "opened my eyes to the fact that there is a God," he said in 1967. "It is obvious that God isn't in a pill, but it explained the mystery of life. It was truly a religious experience." Of LSD's effect, he also said, "It started to find its way into everything we did, really. It colored our perceptions. I think we started to realize there wasn't as many frontiers as we'd thought there were. And we realized we could break barriers."
Using the drug not only helped the band create some of the most legendary music of all time—it also brought them closer together. "After taking acid together, John and I had a very interesting relationship," said George Harrison. "That I was younger or I was smaller was no longer any kind of embarrassment with John. Paul still says, 'I suppose we looked down on George because he was younger.' That is an illusion people are under. It's nothing to do with how many years old you are, or how big your body is. It's down to what your greater consciousness is and if you can live in harmony with what's going on in creation. John and I spent a lot of time together from then on and I felt closer to him than all the others, right through until his death."
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Remastered 2009)www.youtube.com
Ray Charles — My World
The soul music pioneer allegedly once described acid as his "eyes." Charles was blind, but LSD is said to have allowed him some version of sight. Though he struggled with addiction, Charles eventually got clean, though his music always bore some markers of his experiences with the subconscious mind.
Actually, blind people on LSD and hallucinogens can experience hallucinations of different kinds, though it's somewhat rare. According to a study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, this happens because during a trip, "the plasticity of the nervous system allows the recognition and translation of auditory or tactile patterns into visual experiences."
Clapton struggled with drug abuse throughout his life, and LSD certainly had an influence on him. While he was a part of Cream, he frequently played shows while tripping, and according to outontrip.com, he became "convinced that he could turn the audience into angels or devils according to the notes he played."
Before he was creating the ultimate dad rap, Chance the Rapper was an acidhead.
"None of the songs are really declarative statements; a lot of them are just things that make you wonder...a lot like LSD," said Chance the Rapper of his hallucinogen-inspired album, the aptly named Acid Rap. "[There] was a lot of acid involved in Acid Rap," he told MTV in 2013. "I mean, it wasn't too much — I'd say it was about 30 to 40 percent acid ... more so 30 percent acid."
But the album wasn't merely about acid; like much of the best psychedelic music, it was more about the imagery and symbolism associated with the drug than the actual drug itself. "It wasn't the biggest component at all. It was something that I was really interested in for a long time during the making of the tape, but it's not necessarily a huge faction at all. It was more so just a booster, a bit of fuel. It's an allegory to acid, more so than just a tape about acid," he said.
Jazz great John Coltrane was a regular LSD user who used the drug to create music and to have spiritual experiences. Though he struggled with addiction throughout his life, LSD was one drug that had a major artistic influence on him. While it's not known for sure if the album Om—which includes chanted verses of the Bhagavad Gita—was recorded while Coltrane was on LSD, many rumors theorize that it was.
"Coltrane's LSD experiences confirmed spiritual insights he had already discovered rather than radically changing his perspective," wrote Eric Nisenson in Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. "After one early acid trip he said, 'I perceived the interrelationship of all life forms,' an idea he had found repeated in many of the books on Eastern theology that he had been reading for years. For Coltrane, who for years had been trying to relate mystical systems such as numerology and astrology, theories of modern physics and mathematics, the teachings of the great spiritual leaders, and advanced musical theory, and trying somehow to pull these threads into something he could play on his horn. The LSD experience gave him visceral evidence that his quest was on the right track."
Jenny Lewis — Acid Tongue
Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis wrote the song "Acid Tongue" about her first and only experience on LSD, which happened when she was fourteen. She told Rolling Stone, "It culminated in a scene not unlike something from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—the scene where Hunter S. Thompson has to lock the lawyer in the bathroom. I sort of assumed the Hunter S. Thompson character and my friend – she had taken far too much – decided to pull a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer and chase me around the house… At the end of that experience, my mom was out of town on a trip of her own and she returned to find me about 5 lbs lighter and I had—I was so desperate to get back to normal I decided to drink an entire gallon of orange juice. I saw that it was in the fridge and decided that this would sort of flush the LSD out of my system, but I didn't realize that it did exactly the opposite."
The Beach Boys' mastermind Brian Wilson was famously inspired by psychedelics, which both expanded and endangered his fragile and brilliant mind. After his first acid trip in 1965, an experience that he said "expanded his mind," Wilson wrote "California Gurls." After the trip, however, Wilson began suffering from auditory hallucinations and symptoms of schizophrenia, and though he discontinued use of the drug, he continued to hear voices; doctors eventually diagnosed him with the disease. Wilson later lamented his tragic experiences with LSD, stating that he wished he'd never done the drug.
Though it led Wilson on a downward spiral, LSD inspired some of his band's greatest work—namely the iconic Pet Sounds, which launched half a century of "acid-pop copycats."
The Flaming Lips — Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is widely believed to be the product of lead singer Wayne Coyne's LSD experimentation. This theory is corroborated by the fact that the album's cover features the number 25 (and LSD is also known as LSD-25). They also frequently reference LSD in their music, which includes an album called Finally, the Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid.
the flaming lips yoshimi battles the pink robots part 1www.youtube.com
Jimi Hendrix — Voodoo Child
While there is still some general contention on whether Jimi Hendrix hallucinated frequently, nobody really doubts that he did. According to rumors, the legendary musician even used to soak his bandanas in acid before going onstage so the drug would seep through his pores.
According to one source, Hendrix did more than just play music while tripping. He was also an expert at (of all things) the game of Risk.
"Jimi would play Risk on acid, and I never — and me personally — ever beat him at all," said Graham Nash in an interview. "He was unbelievable at it. He was a military man, you know, he's a paratrooper, and I don't know whether you know that about Jimi, but no one ever beat him at Risk."
The Doors — The End
Jim Morrison was a documented LSD user, and it eventually led him out of his mind. "The psychedelic Jim I knew just a year earlier, the one who was constantly coming up with colorful answers to universal questions, was being slowly tortured by something we didn't understand. But you don't question the universe before breakfast for years and not pay a price," said John Desmore in Riders on the Storm: My Life With the Doors.
Morrison used many different drugs during his lifetime, but apparently LSD had a special place and he avoided using it while working. "LSD was a sacred sacrament that was to be taken on the beach at Venice, under the warmth of the sun, with our father the sun and our mother the ocean close by, and you realised how divine you were," said Ray Manzarek. "It wasn't a drug for entertainment. You could smoke a joint and play your music, as most musicians did at the time. But as far as taking LSD, that had to be done in a natural setting."
Morrison himself—a visionary who was also a drug-addled narcissist—was kind of the prototypical 1960s LSD-addled rock star. Alive with visions about poetry and sex but lost in his own self-destruction, he perhaps touched on something of the sublime with his art, but in the end he went down a very human path towards misery and decay.
Like many of these artists' stories, Morrison's life reveals that perhaps instead of using hallucinogens and psychedelics as shortcuts to a spiritual experience, one should exercise extreme caution when exploring the outer reaches of the psyche. When it comes to actually engaging with potent hallucinogens, that might be best left to the shamans, or forgotten with the excesses of the 1960s.
On the other hand, we might do well to learn from the lessons that people have gleaned from hallucinogens over the years—lessons that reveal just how interconnected everything is, that shows us that music and memory and nature may just all stem from the same place.
Harry Styles, YouTube
