Harry Styles' Vogue Cover by Tyler Mitchell Creates Second Issue Run, 40,000 New Subscriptions

English singer, songwriter and actor Harry Styles is partial to gender-bending attire, much as Mick Jagger, Kurt Kobain and David Bowie were back in the day. We’re talking 50 years ago.

For people of a certain age Harry Styles being the first man to go solo on Vogue’s December cover — or any American Vogue cover — was not worthy of breaking the Internet. Wrong.

Harry Styles is considered to be a fashion provocateur, given his status as major muse to Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele. For fashionistas, Harry Styles wearing a dress or two for Vogue was not a big deal, but even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez felt compelled to come to his defense.

“Perhaps for some people it provokes some anger or insecurity around masculinity/femininity/etc. If it does, then maybe that’s part of the point. Sit with that reaction and think about it, examine it, explore it, engage it, and grow with it, “ the all-knowing beyond her years, pundit-politico advised Twitter-world.

The Lafeyette, Indiana Journal & Courier ran a deadline ‘Senior cords,’ a bygone Purdue (University) Tradition, Get Revival in Harry Styles’ Vogue Spread. The Purdue throwback look was part of designer Emily Adams Bode’s Senior Cord Project, a collection of customized corduroy pants and jackets.

How great to see the 2019 CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year be featured in America’s heartland as conservatives like black woman, Trump-lover Candace Owens decried the “steady feminization of our men.”

It’s doubtful that Candace Owens wants to grow with anything that comes out of the mouth of AOC. Besides, the beloved firebrand from the Bronx will soon contend with her own anti-Squad called the “anti-socialist squad” led by Congresswoman-elect Nicole Malliotakis of New York City’s Staten Island.

“I think what you're going to see is a group of individuals who are going to serve as a counterbalance to the values of the socialist squad,” Malliotakis told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday. “We don't believe we should be dismantling the economy. We don't believe we should be destroying free market principles. We don't believe in 'Green New Deal.' We don't believe in packing the courts.”

At least for now, socialism is not front and center in the Harry Styles fashion feature for Vogue’s December issue — only the proverbial topic of men who refuse to dress like the Marlboro man.

The Styles issue is surely the first one in eons that the magazine sold-out, with a rush job run of more Vogues on the way. Fans are on waitlists in stores across America, with a Condé Nast source telling Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post, “We sold 40,000 subscriptions since launch a little over a week ago, and have already ordered a second print run.”

Not wanting to be a deal-killer, let me remind Vogue US that this kind of editorial fanfare is not their usual menu. Additionally, American Vogue, along with other Condé Nast titles, has taken a beating among progressive activists all year.

Having finally succeeded in bringing a plentiful supply of creatives of color to its pages in our post-George Floyd murder world, one wonders about Anna Wintour’s follow-up plan to keep the Vogue content kettle boiling on the stove.

In fact, the Harry Styles interview with Vogue’s Hamish Bowles is quite good, so read it. Camilla Nickerson styles the shoot with images by Tyler Mitchell. Move onto Vogue to see the product credits and read Playtime With Harry Styles’.

“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,” Styles says. “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.”