Harry Styles and the politics of cross dressing

If you are on social media, you have probably scrolled past a hundred photographs of Harry Styles’ Grammys performance last week. It was eccentric, quirky. And Styles donned his much-touted androgynous swagger. 

The media and menswear magazines keep insisting that Styles’ fashion choices are groundbreaking and are setting the tone for a new generation of men. Following the performance, tweets and articles have been shared celebrating Harry’s modish liberation from a sea of monotonous Don Drapers. All because he wore a furry green scarf. 

What Harry is doing, said one commentator for a large men’s magazine, is redefining. Redefine. I hate that word… Once you’ve defined something, hopefully you already got it right. But we continue to redefine (and I’m sure it won’t end there). Many high-profile entertainers, like Jared Leto or Sam Smith, are redefining the man, they say. Redefining stifled male sexuality, and liberating us from the oppression of trousers.