HARRY STYLES

 

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!!! I GET IT!! I heard you all!! Loud and clear!! You were tired of ME and loved the Q&A format so we’re keeping it goin’ this week (don’t worry I will remember this for as long as I am alive and will ruminate on it when I am 76 years old).

We are going to talk about Harry Styles. If you are anyone who is anyone you know who Harry Styles is and if you are me then you only recently discovered his majesty within the last two years. If you don’t want to dissect Harry and all that he stands for as a 2020s cultural icon then just know he was once a member of boy band, One Direction, and has since chartered his own path as a heroic gender-norm bending rock sensation.

What’s truly remarkable about Harry Styles isn’t just that he’s a cultural icon. He is. But he also breaks the bounds of almost every generational gap that I know. Personally, I have spent much of my adult life trying to avoid my love of Harry Styles because of his association with One Direction and my assumption that liking Harry meant I liked One Direction and that therefore meant I was lame. Oh, how wrong I was.

Two people here at Havas have much to share with me when it comes to Harry. We went to town chatting on Monday and it was truly a convo for the books! One I will remember fondly forever. Blair and Marisa are on two different generational spectrums. I sit… somewhere between them.

MEET BLAIR AND MARISA:

“My first love was Dylan McKay (although I was way too young for him tbh). Kelly Kapowski was my 4th grade fashion icon. TRL was my religion in high school and I worshiped at the church of Britney and *NSYNC. Today, Bravo is my love language and BookTok is my latest obsession.”

— BLAIR

“My middle school locker was covered with pictures of Green Day and Fall Out Boy that I cut out of Tiger Beat and J-14 magazines. I listened to burned mix CDs on my walkman (mostly pop-punk, AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses much to my older brother’s influences) until I graduated to the classic iPod when it first came out. My first cell phone was a hot pink razr and my celebrity crush was, and still is, John Cusack.”

— MARISA

 

JULIET: Ok hi thank you for doing this. Alright so let’s just get to it. Blair plz tell me what it is about Harry that you love so much?

 
 

BLAIR: **SIGH** This is so hard. I love his energy. I feel like he is a true rockstar that we don’t really see anymore. I love that he started as a boy bander. And I love boy bands from way back in my youth. I’m a teeny bopper at heart and you can just tell who he is as a person. He's really so authentic — he’s not fake and he owns who he is and he’s not afraid to show that. I love the fact he grew up loving Shania Twain so he brings her out on the stage [at Coachella]. And he has this great relationship with Lizzo and you can just tell that he’s being his real self in all that he does.

JULIET: Marisa, might you share your feelings?

 

MARISA: I love Harry because he’s unapologetically himself! And I saw someone talk about him on TikTok and how he’s not just a musician, he's a performer very similar to what Blair said. He draws you in and I love watching him do this thing. And just his music, when he went solo he turned more rock & roll and that’s what I’ve always gravitated towards.

JULIET: Were either of you fans when Harry was in One Direction?

 

BLAIR: Yes! I love a boy band moment. Maybe it’s the nostalgia. Even in elementary school with New Kids On The Block and All For One (which was one of my first concerts) down to *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. And [Harry’s] voice always carried through for you. And his swagger. I mean, elephant in the room… he’s very… attractive.

JULIET: Marisa, you were shAking your head? No One Direction for you?

 

MARISA: I’m trying to remember. I was at a weird age where if you listened to boy bands it was sort of weird and lame. But if you were a little older than me it was fine. Boy bands were getting phased out for my age group.

JULIET: Did you always know Harry would be this breakout star?

 

BLAIR: Um, yes and no. I’m actually surprised Zayn hasn’t had more success. If you know your One Direction history, you know he wrote a lot of their songs and is also very handsome. But Harry, if you listen to any of those songs [from One Direction], the big belting-out-stuff? That’s Harry. And you FEEL IT! Like Marisa said, he’s a performer. You can tell that he's got something.

JULIET: Ok, so Harry has really been on fire recently. The whole thing with Shania at Coachella. And the other night with Lizzo. What has been your favorite Harry moment to date?

 

MARISA: This is a great question for me because my answer is none of those and is actually his cameo in Marvel’s “Eternals.” It was the mid-credit scene. He was in it!

JULIET: Marisa, you know that movie flopped, right?

 

MARISA: I will not get started refuting you because the meeting will never end.

JULIET: Ok then let’s stick to Harry. What about this mid-credit scene?

 

MARISA: It was just introducing how Harry was going to be a character and I did get spoiled so I wasn’t AS surprised in theaters. But I’m just obsessed with the fact that he’s going to be Starfox in the MCU.

JULIET: We’ll come back to your love for this notorious box office bomb. Anyway, Blair, can you tell me a little more about WHY that Shania moment was so impactful to you?

 

BLAIR: It goes back to the nostalgia. Because that was like taking a song from my high school memories, and it was a MOMENT for me in high school, and bringing me back to that *THING* when I was a teen. And then now, seeing a rockstar that I adore singing it. It was the old and the new for me.

JULIET: What about you, Marisa? Knowing Shania isn’t as nostalGIc?

 

MARISA: Everyone KNOWS Shania so you know it was a big deal. It was such a STAR to have and they had such a good presence. Those videos made me cry and I don’t even really know who Shania is.

BLAIR: *AGHAST* That came out in ‘97 and it was THE SONG, Marisa?!

MARISA: I was THREE!!!

JULIET: Marisa, you are not really winning any points here. 

 

MARISA: I know the song!!! I know it plays everywhere! Whenever I think of that song I think of how in college my roommate said that song was playing when she got her braces on.

JULIET: Moving right along, tell me more about the allure of Harry? Exactly what is it about him that really gets to you and speaks to you?

 

BLAIR: Obviously the music stands up. Like what Marisa was saying, he’s a true rockstar performer, and you can’t point to many of those right now. He’s very attractive, did I say that already? Authentic yes. But approachable. He gives off this air that if you ran into him on the street, you could have a conversation with him and he would actually engage.

MARISA: His fashion! His sense of style! He’s not afraid to wear things that make him feel good. When he was wearing a dress in Vogue, someone commented “bring back manly men” so he reposted it on his IG and the caption was “bring back manly men” and he was posing with a banana. He just doesn’t care.

JULIET: What do you think will be next for Harry?

 

MARISA: Well I guess with the cameo in Marvel I think he wants to be a renaissance man. So maybe that?

BLAIR: He’s definitely been in some movies. So acting. But I hope more music. And hopefully, he comes back to the US because, after the first posts from Coachella, I researched tickets, flights, pretty much everything, and tried to decide how ridiculous it was to go to Coachella to see Harry. Then remembered I’m a mom with three kids. So. 

MARISA: Omg one other thing about Harry, the fashion AT the concerts!!!! They get so into it!! And I don’t see that anywhere else. All those getting ready videos I see, he makes it so fun for everyone.

JULIET: Ok finally, any fav Harry songs?

 

BLAIR:

MARISA:

 

So what’s the point?

Harry is timeless. He doesn’t fit into a box. He is a Renaissance Man. He can hang with SHANIA AND LIZZO. There you go. Get on the Harry Styles bandwagon, people.

AND THE REST OF IT

OK is that enough? I think that’s enough for now.

KLOVEYOUBYE

JT (and Blair and Marisa)