Styles pal: So what if Harry wears a dress
Harry Styles is lucky to have a friend who has his back — even when he wears a dress.
The singer and budding actor’s former One Direction bandmate, Liam Payne, really put things in perspective when responding to the controversy that has ensued after Styles donned a variety of frilly frocks during his groundbreaking cover photo shoot for the December issue of Vogue magazine.
The 27-year-old crooner defended Styles making history as the first man to land a solo cover of the coveted fashion magazine — and having enough testicular fortitude to defy gender categorization by wearing a lace-trimmed dress and tuxedo jacket crafted by Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele.
“[I] thought it was great,” Payne told “Entertainment Tonight” of the fashion-forward move.
“I think he’s enjoying himself and he’s free to do as he wishes,” he added. “And, you know, I just think that people don’t need to be so bothered about stuff. There’s been a lot more stuff going on this year than whether or not he’s wearing the right clothes in someone else’s mind.”
Amid the drama, Republican activist Candace Owens took to social media launch the Bring Back Manly Men campaign and claimed on her Instagram that “women do not find men in dresses to be attractive.”
Payne, who like other One Direction members pursued solo careers after the group disbanded in 2016, said that although they didn’t speak for a long time, Styles never lost sight of who he was.
“He’s still the same guy he always was when we left each other in that dressing room as the band kind of stopped for a little bit,” he shared of his fellow “X-Factor” alum.
As far as his decision to challenge traditional gender norms, Styles told the Anna Wintour-helmed “fashion bible,” that clothes were made to have fun and experiment with.
“What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away,” he told the magazine. “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.”