Tyler Mitchell is fast becoming one of American Vogue's favorite photographers. After making history as the first Black photographer to shoot a cover of the historied glossy (that was Beyoncé in case you didn’t know) he has returned time and time again for stand-out editorials. His latest project is a history-maker itself as well: he’s shot Harry Styles, who is now the first man with a solo cover of the publication. And Styles has landed the cover in a Gucci dress.
The accompanying feature is written by Vogue stalwart Hamish Bowles. In it, he gives Styles the profile treatment tracing his rise in music with One Direction, before detailing how breaking out on his own as a solo act made him fall in love with going to the studio. Then, as appropriate in a Vogue feature, Bowles turns to Styles’ fashion sense, which he points out is a result of a collaboration with his personal stylist Harry Lambert.
Styles himself points to music icons like Prince, David Bowie, Elvis, Freddie Mercury, and Elton John as those who blazed the path before him.
"They’re such showmen," he said. "As a kid it was completely mind-blowing. Now I’ll put on something that feels really flamboyant, and I don’t feel crazy wearing it. I think if you get something that you feel amazing in, it’s like a superhero outfit. Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with. What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away. 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. I’ll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing. It’s like anything — anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself. There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never really thought too much about what it means — it just becomes this extended part of creating something."
For this shoot, longtime Vogue editor Camilla Nickerson headed up the styling with some assistance by Lambert. They pulled the aforementioned Gucci gown as well as a kilt from Comme des Garcons Homme Plus, Wales Bonner skirt, and a standout Maison Margiela trench coat. While Nickerson had 1950s Paris haute couture on her mind for inspirations, Mitchell pulled "Lionel Wendt’s langurously homoerotic 1930s portraits of young Sri Lankan men," according to Bowles.
There’s no other way we’d rather see Harry.
