For ten years, I have been a fan of One Direction, and for ten years men have told me that I am not. I spent much of my twenties listening as men explained that I actually liked the idea of One Direction, as they insisted we talk about this “logically.” You can’t love One Direction, guys would tell me. Their music is not good. And, sure, “What Makes You Beautiful” is very stupid, and maybe actively bad for the culture, telling women they’re only beautiful if they’re also plagued by self-confidence issues. I liked it anyway. I loved to walk around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City (where the artists live) listening to One Direction. It made me feel transgressive and powerful, in the way I think tattoos used to make people feel.
In 2022, men have come around. Not to be like “I invented Harry Styles, and also the concept of pop music,” but Harry released a new album last weekend, and everybody loves it. All it took was ten years of unremitting bops and beautiful shirts.
I became a fan of 1D after watching their spring 2012 performance on Saturday Night Live. (Nothing could be more embarrassing than saying your life changed because of an episode of SNL, but, unfortunately, It Happened To Me.) I was a frazzled college student who knew nothing about the band except that they were popular with people younger than I was—a category which, given that I was 21, had only recently started existing. Watching those four British teens and one British 20-year-old bounce around the SNL stage, performing the world’s most basic choreography and looking thrilled to be there, filled me with joy. I didn’t care that it was music for teen girls.
By the time they released their third album, Midnight Memories, in fall 2013, I was an unabashed One Direction fan in a world trying to abash the shit out of us. I loved the music, yes, especially the songs from the new album, which was—unlike the previous two—largely good. But it was also the joie de vivre, and the fandom. I learned about the snake habitat tweets, and laughed so hard I cried. Men still didn’t care about the band, except those who pandered to my love of One Direction to earn kisses. For some people, dating is about finding a spouse, but for me it was about spreading the word about 1D to as many guys as possible.
In August 2015, the band announced that after their next album they would be going on an indefinite hiatus, in the way Jesus is on an indefinite hiatus from Earth, let’s say. With the end of One Direction in sight, something beautiful happened: Harry Styles started dressing like an absolute freak. While previously his mood board seemed to be “what if Patti Smith was in a boy band,” now he wore superfluous top hats and suits that appeared to be made out of a Midwestern grandma’s curtains. I realized I was something more specific than a One Direction fan: I was a Harry Styles fan.
Harry’s first solo album, 2017’s Harry Styles, slapped. It sounded nothing like One Direction and instead sounded like every single thing my parents, who were young in the ‘70s and ‘80s, played in the car while schlepping my ass around town when I was a kid. But when I played men songs from Harry Styles, they largely did not agree that it slapped. A close male friend listened to it for a minute and then told me “it’s bad.” It seemed to me that if you didn’t like the new Harry Styles album you were a misogynist—because Harry’s fan base was largely young women, he couldn’t possibly be serious or interesting or “cool”—but then again what did I know, I was a young woman.
Still, there was now one way in which serious and interesting men did concede Harry was worth paying attention to: his fashion. By now Harry was taking huge swings, wearing silk Gucci button downs printed with tigers floating in outer space, the kind of thing that made me finally understand the scene in The Great Gatsby where Daisy cries looking at all of Gatsby’s shirts. I started following Instagram accounts dedicated to Harry’s clothing, and sending the best outfits to my most fashionable male friends. When one of those friends bought a shirt that Harry was photographed wearing, it felt like a huge win for society.
And while I had never been the most stylish person in the world and couldn’t afford almost anything Harry wore, I found inspiration in the way Harry dressed, too. I don’t wear makeup, had never worn heels; he was a man experimenting with dressing more floridly; our interests were in sync. When Harry was photographed wearing something that cost less than $100 (bucket hat, Kacey Musgraves shirt, black Vans lace-up sneakers), I bought it. I saw Harry in concert for the first time, in fall 2017 at Radio City Music Hall, and the audience was a sea of girlies wearing the exact same black Vans.
In the next couple years, I watched as Harry became more and more accepted by tastemakers. He co-hosted the camp-themed 2019 Met Gala, and hosted SNL. I realized something had really shifted when a bro pulled up next to my car one day blasting music. I was annoyed, until I realized the song he was blasting was One Direction’s “Drag Me Down.” Harry’s 2019 album Fine Line was even better than his first and seemed primed to make dudes of the world take him seriously, but then the world shut down in March 2020 for some reason, I forget why.
Harry has just released his third solo album, Harry’s House (it’s like a normal house but upside down, because it’s British). Watching the reaction to the album, after ten full years of feeling like a Harry Styles missionary, has been surreal. Critics are saying it’s the best of his career, that he’s finally arrived as a serious artist. All cool men dress like Harry now, and so do all cool people of every gender. Even men who don’t paint their nails but are still cool, like Giannis Antetokounmpo, tweet about enjoying Harry Styles Live In Concert. And yet, even while headlining Coachella, Harry still makes a point of playing “What Makes You Beautiful,” 1D’s most famous and dumbest song, as if to underline that he will never disavow the band and the fans that got him here.
I agree with the reviews: I think Harry’s House is a blast. I’ve been listening to it nonstop since I woke up on 5/20 (blaze it). And that close male friend who told me Harry’s first solo album was bad? He texted me out of the blue. “New Harry Styles album is fun,” he said. “I feel like I’ve come a long way.”
