It’s not an exaggeration to say the Harry Styles concert was one of the biggest events of the year for my teenage daughter. It had been almost a year since she’d bought the tickets, so when the day of the concert dawned, the excitement was at fever pitch.
This was not just because she’s a big fan of his music – as many of us are – but because his concerts have become fashion events in their own right. For his legions of fans, it’s a chance to dress however they want and express themselves in the most outlandish of ways. And Harry Styles devotees have been planning their outfits for as long as they’ve had tickets.
As , fans are spending hundreds of hours not just planning but also designing and sewing their outfits. Many have forged new crafting skills while putting their outfits together.
“Harry is the one that everyone gets on board with. We like to match that level of energy and love. Dressing up is a way of showing physically that you’re in tune,” Zali Hamilton told the Herald. She watched TikToks and got help from her grandmother to create her outfit for the Styles concert.
My daughter scoured Pinterest boards and TikToks, and had planned the theme, style and colour palette long before the concert itself – and you better believe a hot pink feather boa was involved. In fact, feather boas have become such a popular addition to outfits worn at Harry Styles’ concerts there was a of them in cities across Australia.
But why all this fuss about what to wear to a concert? It’s because Styles himself encourages his fans to dress up and express themselves through their clothing.
“Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with,” he in 2020. “Any time 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.”
He’s well aware his biggest fans are teenage girls, and recognises their importance as taste-makers. When magazine in 2017 about whether he worried about only appealing to a young female crowd, his response went viral. “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like The Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”
As someone who’s a mother to a teenage girl, I can assure you that Styles knows what he’s talking about. Teenagers will tell you if something’s good and they’ll tell you if it’s bad. Part of Styles’ huge appeal is that he gives people permission to be themselves and express themselves creatively.
Styles’ own fashion evolution came as a result of teaming up with stylist Harry Lambert back in 2014 when the singer was still in the pop band One Direction. Through this partnership, Styles became known as “, along with becoming the first solo male cover star of .
In the , Styles told Vogue: “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.”
Styles’ fans have taken this message to heart. There are no barriers when it comes to dressing up for a Styles concert, and there is much joy to be had as a result. Just ask my daughter. For her, the concert lived up to the hype and so much more – and not just because of Styles’ singing. As she said, “It was just so much fun!”
When it comes to fashion, having fun is at the heart of it all.
is an author and freelance writer. Her debut novel, , is out now through Penguin Australia.
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