What is it about Harry Styles? The boy who first entered our lives via The X Factor, singing Isn’t She Lovely in his 16-year-old, newly broken voice, turns 30 today, and we’re just as gripped by him as we were back then.
He’s endured and enjoyed nearly 15 years of fame, and each moment has been met with the sheer madness of extreme attraction. From screaming, delirious fans, to high profile relationships with seemingly whoever he chooses – all of which are picked apart by the public and the press – to the questioning of his sexuality and, most memorably, the constant assertion that he and his One Direction band mate Louis Tomlinson were shagging.
It’s been well over a decade and despite being an increasingly fickle society, we’re still as wild for Styles as we’ve always been. His Love on Tour shows sold five million tickets and grossed over $600 million, fan pages devoted to the singer continue to rack up hundreds of thousands of followers and every facet of his life is still pored over by the press (a recent headline from OK magazine: ‘I went to school with Harry Styles – our belts were made from shoelaces’).
There’s even a movie being made out of a fanfiction book that was written about him, set to star Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine. We are not over Harry Styles — not even close. So what is it about him that drives us so inconceivably, embarrassingly, tear-out-our-own-hair buckwild?
Perhaps it was the circumstances of his come up: a regular boy from Worcestershire who found fame through a talent show — as close to a meritocracy as it got in the music industry those days. “I think because we grew up with him, we've seen him in those awkward stages, we’ve seen the really big things, we feel connected to him,” says Kira, a 29-year-old Harry Styles fan and former Directioner who has seen the singer in concert three times, and One Direction in concert seven times. “We’ve seen him go from reality TV to winning a Grammy,” she explains.
Kira and Styles are only three months apart in age, which is notable: the teenagers who fancied that cheeky boy on The X Factor stage are now women who fancy the adult man he has become. This was crucial in helping Styles to feel like more of an achievable crush from day dot. The teen girls of today might have Jacob Elordi and Timothée Chalamet, but there’s a lot less opportunity for delusion when your heartthrobs are already in their late 20s.
And then there are his relationships. Styles has dated an apparently never ending string of beautiful and well-known women, from Taylor Swift to Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski to Olivia Wilde and, most recently, up-and-coming actor and Loewe ambassador Taylor Russell.
Who a celebrity chooses to date can make or break their heartthrob status — just look at how people deride Leonardo DiCaprio for his harem of 25-year-olds, or Ariana Grande’s decision to date married man and SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical actor Ethan Slater. But despite some pretty high profile relationships (and breakups, see: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift), Styles has managed to maintain the adoration of people everywhere.
According to 23-year-old Katie, who has run a Harry Styles fan account on Instagram since 2014, it’s deeper than that. “Who he is as a person, on stage and through his music, I think that’s more important,” she says, “because whoever he dates, that doesn't change.” Katie also notes that Styles remains surprisingly open about his personal life in his songs, even if nowhere else. “I think people appreciate it more, because they can relate to it,” she says.
And then there are the outfits. Styles morphed from Topman-boyband-chic to avant garde style icon in front of our very eyes (with a slight detour around 2014 where he kept wearing that silly hat). It was like watching your lovable-yet-slightly-basic school ex-boyfriend suddenly stop wearing skinny jeans and shift into straight leg: you can’t help but feel proud, and a little attracted to him all over again. Except with Styles, it wasn’t just straight leg jeans: it was wide leg, high waisted everything, complemented with strings of pearls and pops of bright colour, like a sexy Cabbage Patch kid.
He also veered into more androgynous dressing, which continued Styles’ appeal to queer audiences and younger women. “I do think [his style] makes him more approachable and more relatable, but also non-threatening,” says Kira, “which is obviously a bigger deal for younger people, or parents of kids who listen to him and find him ‘nice’. He appeals to a whole spectrum of ages. My mum’s obsessed with him, I’m obsessed with him, my cousins who are 15 years younger than me are obsessed with him.”
Katie thinks it has also inspired his fans to diversify their own personal style, which you’ll have noticed from his rainbow-coloured, feather-boa-clad crowds at Wembley last summer. “Wearing what he wants without fear of how it’ll be perceived helps a lot of people to do the same,” she says. “He’s mentioned in past interviews that a piece of fabric shouldn’t be used to define a person’s sexuality as it’s just a piece of clothing. He’s unapologetically himself, and wearing the clothes that push those boundaries is something you can’t help but admire about him, it’s a show of maturity.”
As much as Harry has carved himself out a distinct aesthetic and personal brand – I could show you a picture of some pearls and an oversized shirt collar and you’d know who I was talking about – he still gives little enough away about his personal life to be the ultimate heartthrob. It’s a fine line between over-obscurity and too much information, but Harry knows how to walk it. As Kira puts it: “We don’t know as much about him anymore, but everything we do know about him is good. It’s like he’s a blank slate, and people can project anything they want onto him, as long as it’s nice.”
