#hws west rome

[doueverwonder]

Ancient Greece: I just had a long talk with Eurus and Zephyros about hitting and now they are yelling "it's my turn to perpetuate the cycle of violence!" before hitting each other.

[kostantina]

HWS Female Holy Rome X England (Medieval Empire X Modern Empire)

AESTHETIC MOOD BOARD

❝Many German and English writers were fond of expressing a common Anglo-Saxon-Germanic heritage prior to 1914, but in fact this largely disappeared after the Saxon migrations of late antiquity. Important contacts remained, especially with the renewed missionary activity promoted by the Carolingians, who often relied on qualified monks from the British Isles, like St Boniface, but otherwise England and the Empire evolved separately. While a sense of Saxon heritage may have played a part, both countries were sufficiently distant not to be immediate competitors. Ironically, this opened possibilities for royal marriages which, like Byzantine-imperial matches, were intended mainly to impress a domestic audience and avoid antagonizing a king’s nobles by tying him to one local family. Otto I married Alfred the Great’s granddaughter, Edith of Wessex, while Henry III married Gunhild, daughter of Knut of Denmark-England. Edith’s and Knut’s deaths ended any chances of a lasting alliance in both cases.

❝By contrast, connections in the high Middle Ages were more significant, if less celebrated in the nineteenth century. Emperor Henry V married Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, in 1114 as a deliberate attempt to forge an alliance with the Anglo-Norman dynasty ruling much of Britain since 1066. It was hoped this would outflank a Franco-papal alliance threatening the Empire towards the end of the Investiture Dispute.❞

-  Peter H. Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire

❝On his mother's advice, Richard resigned the kingdom of England to Henry VI in order to receive it back as a fief of the empire. He was to pay his overlord £5,000 a year. Richard was now a vassal of Philip for his continental lands and a vassal of Henry VI for his island kingdom, but it seems that in England few, if any, were willing to acknowledge this, and that this part of the agreement was hushed up. At Henry's court, of course, it was regarded as the jewel in the crown.

❝On the day of his release, Henry VI and the princes of the empire had sent Philip and John a letter telling them that they would do all they could to help Richard if everything that had been taken while Richard was in captivity was not restored at once.❞

- John Gillingham, Richard I

❝On the morning of 6 August an imperial herald in full regalia rode through Vienna to the Jesuit church of the Nine Choirs of Angels. After climbing to the balcony, he summoned the inhabitants with a silver fanfare to announce the end of the Empire.

❝The Empire was certainly not dead by the late eighteenth century, and if it was sick, as Zedler and others suggested, it was not yet on life support. If revolutionary France had not intervened, the most likely prognosis was that the Empire’s socio-political order would have persisted further into the nineteenth century, but it is unlikely that this could have been sustained against the levelling and homogenizing forces unleashed by capitalism and industrialization around 1830.

❝By 1806, some leading intellectuals expressed the sense that the Empire had been sick for a long time and that its doctors had long given up hope. Goethe’s mother wrote two weeks after Francis II’s abdication that the news was not unexpected, ‘as when an old friend is very ill’. Later historians have expressed similar views that the Empire died ‘a “natural” death’ from old age, rather than having been murdered by Napoleon.❞

-  Peter H. Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire

❞By the end of the Napoleonic Wars, French imperialism had been curbed in North America, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia, but soon much of North and West Africa would be brought under French political and cultural influence. Spain was no longer a major power, but after the demise of its empire in the 1830’s its cultural dominance in the countries of South America remained: their economies urban, their governments strictly centralized, and their peoples devoutly Catholic in the Spanish style (Fernandez-Armesto, 2003). The Dutch and Portuguese empires were also in decline, and yet survived, resistant to radical change because of the commercial benefits derived from their overseas possessions. However, none of these four imperial orders came close to matching the size and power and wealth of the British Empire.

❝Encompassing nearly a quarter of the Earth’s land mass and a quarter of its population, the British Empire in the 19th century grew into the most extensive empire the world has ever seen.❞

- Douglas M. Johnston, In The Historical Foundations of World Order: The Tower and the Arena

[hlupdate]

A hand­shake can quell polit­i­cal unrest and sti­fle impend­ing war. It can, with a bit of spit, val­i­date a gentleman’s agree­ment, end a years-long roman­tic rela­tion­ship or send a young heart rac­ing. But it all depends on the two par­ties involved.

Daisy, 21, felt a seis­mic jolt when Har­ry Styles, 25, wear­ing a striped jumper and rings on three of his five fin­gers, clutched her hand two days after this year’s Met Gala in New York, when she served him gela­to at the shop where she worked.

“He decid­ed on a small mint choco­late gela­to and I made his and the one for his friend and I said, ​‘Can I just say I absolute­ly loved your Met Gala look’ and he said ​‘Thank you very much! What’s your name?’ And I said, ​‘Daisy’ AND HE FUCK­ING EXTEND­ED HISHAND AND REACHED TO SHAKE MY HAND AND I ACTU­AL­LY FUCK­INGSHOOK HIS HAND WHAT THE FUCK,” she wrote on Insta­gram after The Shak­en­ing. ​“Like I didn’t even say any­thing to gas him up besides ​‘I loved your met gala look’ and his fine ass went and shook my hand! WHAT A BEAU­TI­FUL FUCK­ING HUMAN BEINGTHAT HE IS GOD BLESS HIM AND I HOPE HW [sic] LIVES FOREVER.”

For Har­ry Styles, a hand­shake can be a roman­tic ges­ture, con­jur­ing a potent rev­er­ence in its recip­i­ent, like the time he met Gucci’s cre­ative direc­tor Alessan­dro Michele. ​“He was as attrac­tive as James Dean and as per­sua­sive as Gre­ta Gar­bo. He was like a Luchi­no Vis­con­ti char­ac­ter, like an Apol­lo: at the same time sexy as a woman, as a kid, as a man,” Michele told me, has­ten­ing to add: ​“Of course, Har­ry is not aware of this.”

No, Styles has no idea the pow­er he wields. In per­son, he’s tow­er­ing, like some­one who is not that much taller but whose rep­u­ta­tion adds four inch­es. Styles has a seda­tive bari­tone, spo­ken in a rum­my north­ern Eng­lish accent, that tum­bles out so slow­ly you for­get the name of your first born, a swag­ger that has been nursed and per­fect­ed in myth­i­cal places with names like Pais­ley Park, or Abbey Road, or Grace­land. Makes com­plete sense that he would be up for the role of Elvis Pres­ley in Baz Luhrmann’s upcom­ing biopic. He was primed, nay, born to shake his hips, all but one but­ton on his shirt cling­ing for dear life around his tor­so. Then the part was award­ed to anoth­er actor, Austin Butler.

“[Elvis] was such an icon for me grow­ing up,” Styles tells me. ​“There was some­thing almost sacred about him, almost like I didn’t want to touch him. Then I end­ed up get­ting into [his life] a bit and I wasn’t dis­ap­point­ed,” he adds of his ini­tial research and prepa­ra­tions to play The King. He seems relaxed about los­ing the part to But­ler. ​“I feel like if I’m not the right per­son for the thing, then it’s best for both of us that I don’t do it, you know?”

Styles released his self-titled debut solo album in May 2017. The boy­band grad was clear­ly unin­ter­est­ed in hol­low­ing out the charts with more for­mu­la­ic meme pop. Instead, to the sur­prise of many, he dug his heels into retro-fetishist West Coast ​’70s rock. Some of the One Direc­tion fan-hordes might have been con­fused, but no mat­ter: Har­ry Styles sold one mil­lion copies.

Despite its com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess, he didn’t tour the album right away. He want­ed to act in the Christo­pher Nolan film Dunkirk. To his cred­it, his por­tray­al of a British sol­dier cow­er­ing in a moored boat on the French beach­es as the Nazis advanced wasn’t skew­ered in the press like the movie debuts of, say, Madon­na or Justin Tim­ber­lake. Per­haps he was fol­low­ing advice giv­en by Elton John, who had urged him to diver­si­fy. ​“He was bril­liant in Dunkirk, which took a lot of peo­ple by sur­prise,” John writes in an email. ​“I love how he takes chances and risks.” Act­ing, unlike music, is a release for Styles; it’s the one time he can be not himself.

“Why do I want to act? It’s so dif­fer­ent to music for me,” he says, sud­den­ly ani­mat­ed. ​“They’re almost oppo­site for me. Music, you try and put so much of your­self into it; act­ing, you’re try­ing to total­ly dis­ap­pear in who­ev­er you’re being.”

Fol­low­ing the news that he missed out on Pres­ley, his name was float­ed for the role of Prince Eric in Disney’s live-action remake of The Lit­tle Mer­maid. How­ev­er, fans will have to wait a bit longer to see Styles on the big screen as that idea, too, has sunk. He won’t be The King or the Prince. ​“It was dis­cussed,” he acknow­ledges before swift­ly chang­ing the sub­ject. ​“I want to put music out and focus on that for a while. But every­one involved in it was amaz­ing, so I think it’s going to be great. I’ll enjoy watch­ing it, I’m sure.”

The new album is wrapped and the sin­gle is decid­ed upon. ​“It’s not like his last album,” his friend, rock ​‘n’ roll leg­end Ste­vie Nicks, told me recent­ly over the phone. ​“It’s not like any­thing One Direc­tion ever did. It’s pure Har­ry, as Har­ry would say. He’s made a very dif­fer­ent record and it’s spectacular.”

Beyond that, Styles is keep­ing his cards close to his chest as to his next musi­cal move. How­ev­er, the air is thick with rumours that his main wing­man for HS2 is Kid Har­poon, aka Tom Hull, who co-wrote debut album track Sweet Crea­ture. No less an author­i­ty than Liam Gal­lagher told us that both big band escapees were in the same stu­dio – RAK in north-west Lon­don – at the same time mak­ing their sec­ond solo albums. Styles played him a cou­ple of tracks, ​“and I tell you what, they’re good,” Gal­lagher enthused. ​“A bit like that Bon Iver. Is that his name?”

Har­ry Styles met Nicks at a Fleet­wood Mac con­cert in Los Ange­les in April 2015. Some­thing about him felt authen­tic to the leg­endary front­woman: ground­ed, like she’d known him for­ev­er, blessed with a win­ning moon­shot grin. A month lat­er, they met back­stage at anoth­er Mac gig, this time at the O2 in Lon­don. Styles brought a car­rot cake for Nicks’ birth­day, her name piped in icing on top. By her own admis­sion, Nicks doesn’t even cel­e­brate birth­days, so this was a sur­prise. ​“He was per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for me actu­al­ly hav­ing to cel­e­brate my birth­day, which was very sweet,” she says.

Styles’ rela­tion­ship with Nicks is hard to define. Induct­ing her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York as a solo artist ear­li­er this year, his speech hymned her as a ​“mag­i­cal gyp­sy god­moth­er who occu­pies the in-between”. She’s called him her ​“lovechild” with Mick Fleet­wood and the ​“son I nev­er had”. Both have moved past the pre­lim­i­nary chat acknowl­edg­ing each other’s unquan­tifi­able tal­ents and smooth­ly accel­er­at­ed towards play­ful cut-and-thrust ban­ter of a witch mom and her naughty child.

They per­form togeth­er – he sings The Chainand Stop Drag­gin’ My Heart Around; she sings the one alleged­ly writ­ten about Tay­lor Swift, Two Ghosts. One of those per­for­mances was at the Guc­ci Cruise after­par­ty in Rome in May, for ​“a lot of mon­ey”, Nicks tells me, in a ​“big kind of cas­tle place”. She has become his de fac­to men­tor – one phone call is all it takes to reach the Queen of Rock’n’Roll for advice on sequenc­ing (“She is real­ly good at track list­ing,” Styles admits) or just to hear each other’s voic­es… because, well, wouldn’t you?

Fol­low­ing anoth­er Fleet­wood Mac con­cert, at London’s Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, in June, Nicks met Styles for a late (Indi­an) din­ner. He then invit­ed her back to his semi-detached Geor­gian man­sion in north Lon­don for a lis­ten­ing par­ty at mid­night. The album – HS2or what­ev­er it’ll be called – was fin­ished. Nicks, her assis­tant Karen, her make-up artist and her friends Jess and Mary crammed onto Styles’ liv­ing-room couch. They lis­tened to it once through in silence like a ​“bunch of edu­cat­ed monks or some­thing in this dark room”. Then once again, 15 or 16 tracks, this time each of his guests offer­ing live feed­back. It wrapped at 5am, just as the sun was bleed­ing through the curtains.

Even for a pop star of Styles’ stature, press­ing ​“play” on a deeply per­son­al work for your hero to digest, watch­ing her face react in real time to your new music, must be… what?

“It’s a dou­ble-edged thing,” he replies. ​“You’re always ner­vous when you are play­ing peo­ple music for the first time. You’ve heard it so much by this point, you for­get that peo­ple haven’t heard it before. It’s hard to not feel like you’ve done what you’ve set out to do. You are hap­py with some­thing and then some­one who you respect so much and look up to is, like: ​‘I real­ly like this.’ It feels like a large stamp [of approval]. It’s a big step towards feel­ing very com­fort­able with what­ev­er else hap­pens to it.”

Wad­ing through Styles’ back­ground info is exhaust­ing, since he was spanked by fame in the social media era where every god­dam blink of a kohl-rimmed eye has been doc­u­ment­ed from six angles. (And yes, he does some­times wear guyliner.)

Deep breath: born in Red­ditch, Worces­ter­shire, to par­ents Des and Anne, who divorced when he was sev­en. Grew up in Holmes Chapel in Cheshire with his sis­ter Gem­ma, mum and step­dad Robin Twist. Rode hors­es at a near­by sta­ble for free (“I was a bad rid­er, but I was a rid­er”). Stopped rid­ing, ​“got into dif­fer­ent stuff”. Formed a band, White Eski­mo, with school­mates. Aged 16, tried out for the 2010 run of The X Fac­torwith a stir­ring but aver­age ren­di­tion of Ste­vie Wonder’s Isn’t She Love­ly. Cut from the show and put into a boy band with four oth­ers, Louis Tom­lin­son, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, and called One Direc­tion. Became inter­na­tion­al­ly famous, toured the globe. Zayn quit to go solo. Toured some more. Dat­ed but maybe didn’t date Car­o­line Flack, Rita Ora and Tay­lor Swift – whom he report­ed­ly dumped in the British Vir­gin Islands. (This rela­tion­ship, if noth­ing else, yield­ed an icon­ic, can­did shot of Swift look­ing deject­ed, being motored back to shore on the back of a boat called the Fly­ing Ray.) One Direc­tion dis­cussed dis­band­ing in 2014, actu­al­ly dis­solved in 2015. They remain friend­ly, and Styles offi­cial­ly went solo in 2016.

It’s been two years since his epony­mous debut and lead sin­gle, Sign of the Times, shocked the world and Elton John with its swag­ger­ing, soft rock sound. ​“It came out of left field and I loved it,” John says.

After 89 are­na-packed shows across five con­ti­nents grossed him, the label, whomev­er, over $61 mil­lion, Styles had all but dis­ap­peared. He has emerged only inter­mit­tent­ly for pub­lic-fac­ing events – a Guc­ci after­par­ty per­for­mance here, a Met Gala co-chair­ing there. He relo­cat­ed from Los Ange­les back to Lon­don, sell­ing his Hol­ly­wood Hills house for $6mil­lion and ship­ping his Jaguar E-type across the Atlantic so he could take joyrides on the M25.

“I’m not over LA,” he insists when I ask about the move. ​“My rela­tion­ship with LAchanged a lot. What I want­ed from LA changed.”

A great escape, he would agree, is some­times nec­es­sary. He was in Tokyo for most of Jan­u­ary, hav­ing near­ly fin­ished his album. ​“I need­ed time to get out of that album frame-of-mind of: ​‘Is it fin­ished? Where am I at? What’s hap­pen­ing?’ I real­ly need­ed that time away from every­one. I was kind of just in Tokyo by myself.” His sab­bat­i­cal most­ly involved read­ing Haru­ki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle, singing Nir­vana at karaoke, writ­ing alone in his hotel room, lis­ten­ing to music and eaves­drop­ping on strangers in alien con­ver­sa­tion. ​“It was just a pos­i­tive time for my head and I think that impact­ed the album in a big way.”

Dur­ing this break he watched a lot of films, read a lot of books. Some­times he texts these rec­om­men­da­tions to his pal Michele at Guc­ci. He told Michele to watch the Ali Mac­graw film, Love Sto­ry. ​“We text what friends text about. He is the same [as me] in terms of he lives in his own world and he does his own thing. I love dress­ing up and he loves dress­ing up.”

Because he loves dress­ing up, Michele chose Styles to be the face of three Guc­ci Tai­lor­ing cam­paigns and of its new gen­der­less fra­grance, Mémoire d’une Odeur.

“The moment I met him, I imme­di­ate­ly under­stood there was some­thing strong around him,” Michele tells me. ​“I realised he was much more than a young singer. He was a young man, dressed in a thought­ful way, with uncombed hair and a beau­ti­ful voice. I thought he gath­ered with­in him­self the fem­i­nine and the masculine.”

Fash­ion, for Styles, is a play­ground. Some­thing he doesn’t take too seri­ous­ly. A cou­ple of years ago Har­ry Lam­bert, his styl­ist since 2015, acquired for him a pair of pink metal­lic Saint Lau­rent boots that he has nev­er been pho­tographed wear­ing. They are exceed­ing­ly rare – few pairs exist. Styles wears them ​“to get milk”. They are, in his words, ​“super-fun”. He’s not sure, but he has, ball­park, 50 pairs of shoes, as well as full clos­ets in at least three post­codes. He set­tles on an out­fit fair­ly quick­ly, maybe changes his T-shirt once before head­ing out, but most­ly knows what he likes.

What he may not ful­ly com­pre­hend is that sim­ply by being pho­tographed in a gar­ment he can spur the career of a design­er, as he has with Har­ris Reed, Palo­mo Spain, Charles Jef­frey, Alled-Martínez and a new favourite, Bode. Styles wore a SS16 Guc­ci flo­ral suit to the 2015 Amer­i­can Music Awards. When he was asked who made his suit on the red car­pet, Guc­ci began trend­ing world­wide on Twitter.

“It was one of the first times a male wore Alessandro’s run­way designs and, at the time, men were not tak­ing too many red car­pet risks,” says Lam­bert. ​“Who knows if it influ­enced oth­ers, but it was a spe­cial moment. Plus, it was fun see­ing the fans dress up in suits to come see Harry’s shows.”

Yet tra­di­tion­al gen­der codes of dress still have the minds of mid­dle Amer­i­ca in a choke­hold. Men can’t wear women’s clothes, say the online whingers, who have labelled him ​“trag­ic”, ​“a clown” and a Bowie wannabe. Styles doesn’t care. ​“What’s fem­i­nine and what’s mas­cu­line, what men are wear­ing and what women are wear­ing – it’s like there are no lines any more.”

Elton John agrees: ​“It worked for Marc Bolan, Bowie and Mick. Har­ry has the same qualities.”

Then there is the ques­tion of Styles’ sex­u­al­i­ty, some­thing he has admit­ted­ly ​“nev­er real­ly start­ed to label”, which will plague him until he does. Per­haps it’s part of his allure. He’s bran­dished a pride flag that read ​“Make Amer­i­ca Gay Again” on stage, and plant­ed a stake some­where left of cen­tre on sexuality’s rain­bow spectrum.

“In the posi­tion that he’s in, he can’t real­ly say a lot, but he chose a queer girl band to open for him and I think that speaks vol­umes,” Josette Maskin of the queer band MUNA told The Face ear­li­er this year.

“I get a lot of…” Styles trails off, wheels turn­ing on how he can dis­cuss sex­u­al­i­ty with­out real­ly answer­ing. ​“I’m not always super-out­spo­ken. But I think it’s very clear from choic­es that I make that I feel a cer­tain way about lots of things. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess I’m not…” He paus­es again, piv­ots. ​“I want every­one to feel wel­come at shows and online. They want to be loved and equal, you know? I’m nev­er unsup­port­ed, so it feels weird for me to over­think it for some­one else.”

Sex­u­al­i­ty aside, he must acknowl­edge that he has sex appeal. ​“The word ​‘sexy’ sounds so strange com­ing out of my mouth. So I would say that that’s prob­a­bly why I would not con­sid­er myself sexy.”

Har­ry Styles has emerged ful­ly-formed, an anachro­nis­tic rock star, vague in sen­si­bil­i­ty but des­tined to impress with a dis­arm­ing smile and a warm but firm handshake.

I recite to him a quote from Chrissie Hyn­de of The Pre­tenders about her time atop rock’s throne: ​“I nev­er got into this for the mon­ey or because I want­ed to join in the super­star sex around the swim­ming pools. I did it because the offer of a record con­tract came along and it seemed like it might be more fun than being a wait­ress. Now, I’m not so sure.”

Styles – who worked in a bak­ery in a small north­ern town some time before play­ing to 40,000 scream­ing fans in South Amer­i­can are­nas – must have wit­nessed some shit, been invit­ed to a few pool­side sex par­ties, in his time.

“I’ve seen a cou­ple of things,” he nods in agree­ment. ​“But I’m still young. I feel like there’s still stuff to see.”

[stylesnews]

The Face - Volume 4 . Issue 1

A hand­shake can quell polit­i­cal unrest and sti­fle impend­ing war. It can, with a bit of spit, val­i­date a gentleman’s agree­ment, end a years-long roman­tic rela­tion­ship or send a young heart rac­ing. But it all depends on the two par­ties involved.

Daisy, 21, felt a seis­mic jolt when Har­ry Styles, 25, wear­ing a striped jumper and rings on three of his five fin­gers, clutched her hand two days after this year’s Met Gala in New York, when she served him gela­to at the shop where she worked.

“He decid­ed on a small mint choco­late gela­to and I made his and the one for his friend and I said, ​‘Can I just say I absolute­ly loved your Met Gala look’ and he said ​‘Thank you very much! What’s your name?’ And I said, ​‘Daisy’ AND HE FUCK­ING EXTEND­ED HIS HAND AND REACHEDTO SHAKE MY HAND AND I ACTU­AL­LY FUCK­ING SHOOK HIS HAND WHAT THEFUCK,” she wrote on Insta­gram after The Shak­en­ing. ​“Like I didn’t even say any­thing to gas him up besides ​‘I loved your met gala look’ and his fine ass went and shook my hand! WHATA BEAU­TI­FUL FUCK­ING HUMAN BEING THAT HE IS GOD BLESS HIM AND I HOPE HW[sic] LIVES FOREVER.”

For Har­ry Styles, a hand­shake can be a roman­tic ges­ture, con­jur­ing a potent rev­er­ence in its recip­i­ent, like the time he met Gucci’s cre­ative direc­tor Alessan­dro Michele. ​“He was as attrac­tive as James Dean and as per­sua­sive as Gre­ta Gar­bo. He was like a Luchi­no Vis­con­ti char­ac­ter, like an Apol­lo: at the same time sexy as a woman, as a kid, as a man,” Michele told me, has­ten­ing to add: ​“Of course, Har­ry is not aware of this.”

No, Styles has no idea the pow­er he wields. In per­son, he’s tow­er­ing, like some­one who is not that much taller but whose rep­u­ta­tion adds four inch­es. Styles has a seda­tive bari­tone, spo­ken in a rum­my north­ern Eng­lish accent, that tum­bles out so slow­ly you for­get the name of your first born, a swag­ger that has been nursed and per­fect­ed in myth­i­cal places with names like Pais­ley Park, or Abbey Road, or Grace­land. Makes com­plete sense that he would be up for the role of Elvis Pres­ley in Baz Luhrmann’s upcom­ing biopic. He was primed, nay, born to shake his hips, all but one but­ton on his shirt cling­ing for dear life around his tor­so. Then the part was award­ed to anoth­er actor, Austin Butler.

“[Elvis] was such an icon for me grow­ing up,” Styles tells me. ​“There was some­thing almost sacred about him, almost like I didn’t want to touch him. Then I end­ed up get­ting into [his life] a bit and I wasn’t dis­ap­point­ed,” he adds of his ini­tial research and prepa­ra­tions to play The King. He seems relaxed about los­ing the part to But­ler. ​“I feel like if I’m not the right per­son for the thing, then it’s best for both of us that I don’t do it, you know?”

Styles released his self-titled debut solo album in May 2017. The boy­band grad was clear­ly unin­ter­est­ed in hol­low­ing out the charts with more for­mu­la­ic meme pop. Instead, to the sur­prise of many, he dug his heels into retro-fetishist West Coast ​’70s rock. Some of the One Direc­tion fan-hordes might have been con­fused, but no mat­ter: Har­ry Styles sold one mil­lion copies.

Despite its com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess, he didn’t tour the album right away. He want­ed to act in the Christo­pher Nolan film Dunkirk. To his cred­it, his por­tray­al of a British sol­dier cow­er­ing in a moored boat on the French beach­es as the Nazis advanced wasn’t skew­ered in the press like the movie debuts of, say, Madon­na or Justin Tim­ber­lake. Per­haps he was fol­low­ing advice giv­en by Elton John, who had urged him to diver­si­fy. ​“He was bril­liant in Dunkirk, which took a lot of peo­ple by sur­prise,” John writes in an email. ​“I love how he takes chances and risks.” Act­ing, unlike music, is a release for Styles; it’s the one time he can be not himself.

“Why do I want to act? It’s so dif­fer­ent to music for me,” he says, sud­den­ly ani­mat­ed. ​“They’re almost oppo­site for me. Music, you try and put so much of your­self into it; act­ing, you’re try­ing to total­ly dis­ap­pear in who­ev­er you’re being.”

Fol­low­ing the news that he missed out on Pres­ley, his name was float­ed for the role of Prince Eric in Disney’s live-action remake of The Lit­tle Mer­maid. How­ev­er, fans will have to wait a bit longer to see Styles on the big screen as that idea, too, has sunk. He won’t be The King or the Prince. ​“It was dis­cussed,” he acknow­ledges before swift­ly chang­ing the sub­ject. ​“I want to put music out and focus on that for a while. But every­one involved in it was amaz­ing, so I think it’s going to be great. I’ll enjoy watch­ing it, I’m sure.”

The new album is wrapped and the sin­gle is decid­ed upon. ​“It’s not like his last album,” his friend, rock ​‘n’ roll leg­end Ste­vie Nicks, told me recent­ly over the phone. ​“It’s not like any­thing One Direc­tion ever did. It’s pure Har­ry, as Har­ry would say. He’s made a very dif­fer­ent record and it’s spectacular.”

Beyond that, Styles is keep­ing his cards close to his chest as to his next musi­cal move. How­ev­er, the air is thick with rumours that his main wing­man for HS2 is Kid Har­poon, aka Tom Hull, who co-wrote debut album track Sweet Crea­ture. No less an author­i­ty than Liam Gal­lagher told us that both big band escapees were in the same stu­dio – RAK in north-west Lon­don – at the same time mak­ing their sec­ond solo albums. Styles played him a cou­ple of tracks, ​“and I tell you what, they’re good,” Gal­lagher enthused. ​“A bit like that Bon Iver. Is that his name?”

Har­ry Styles met Nicks at a Fleet­wood Mac con­cert in Los Ange­les in April 2015. Some­thing about him felt authen­tic to the leg­endary front­woman: ground­ed, like she’d known him for­ev­er, blessed with a win­ning moon­shot grin. A month lat­er, they met back­stage at anoth­er Mac gig, this time at the O2 in Lon­don. Styles brought a car­rot cake for Nicks’ birth­day, her name piped in icing on top. By her own admis­sion, Nicks doesn’t even cel­e­brate birth­days, so this was a sur­prise. ​“He was per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for me actu­al­ly hav­ing to cel­e­brate my birth­day, which was very sweet,” she says.

Styles’ rela­tion­ship with Nicks is hard to define. Induct­ing her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York as a solo artist ear­li­er this year, his speech hymned her as a ​“mag­i­cal gyp­sy god­moth­er who occu­pies the in-between”. She’s called him her ​“lovechild” with Mick Fleet­wood and the ​“son I nev­er had”. Both have moved past the pre­lim­i­nary chat acknowl­edg­ing each other’s unquan­tifi­able tal­ents and smooth­ly accel­er­at­ed towards play­ful cut-and-thrust ban­ter of a witch mom and her naughty child.

They per­form togeth­er – he sings The Chain and Stop Drag­gin’ My Heart Around; she sings the one alleged­ly writ­ten about Tay­lor Swift, Two Ghosts. One of those per­for­mances was at the Guc­ci Cruise after­par­ty in Rome in May, for ​“a lot of mon­ey”, Nicks tells me, in a ​“big kind of cas­tle place”. She has become his de fac­to men­tor – one phone call is all it takes to reach the Queen of Rock’n’Roll for advice on sequenc­ing (“She is real­ly good at track list­ing,” Styles admits) or just to hear each other’s voic­es… because, well, wouldn’t you?

Fol­low­ing anoth­er Fleet­wood Mac con­cert, at London’s Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, in June, Nicks met Styles for a late (Indi­an) din­ner. He then invit­ed her back to his semi-detached Geor­gian man­sion in north Lon­don for a lis­ten­ing par­ty at mid­night. The album – HS2or what­ev­er it’ll be called – was fin­ished. Nicks, her assis­tant Karen, her make-up artist and her friends Jess and Mary crammed onto Styles’ liv­ing-room couch. They lis­tened to it once through in silence like a ​“bunch of edu­cat­ed monks or some­thing in this dark room”. Then once again, 15 or 16 tracks, this time each of his guests offer­ing live feed­back. It wrapped at 5am, just as the sun was bleed­ing through the curtains.

Even for a pop star of Styles’ stature, press­ing ​“play” on a deeply per­son­al work for your hero to digest, watch­ing her face react in real time to your new music, must be… what?

“It’s a dou­ble-edged thing,” he replies. ​“You’re always ner­vous when you are play­ing peo­ple music for the first time. You’ve heard it so much by this point, you for­get that peo­ple haven’t heard it before. It’s hard to not feel like you’ve done what you’ve set out to do. You are hap­py with some­thing and then some­one who you respect so much and look up to is, like: ​‘I real­ly like this.’ It feels like a large stamp [of approval]. It’s a big step towards feel­ing very com­fort­able with what­ev­er else hap­pens to it.”

Wad­ing through Styles’ back­ground info is exhaust­ing, since he was spanked by fame in the social media era where every god­dam blink of a kohl-rimmed eye has been doc­u­ment­ed from six angles. (And yes, he does some­times wear guyliner.)

Deep breath: born in Red­ditch, Worces­ter­shire, to par­ents Des and Anne, who divorced when he was sev­en. Grew up in Holmes Chapel in Cheshire with his sis­ter Gem­ma, mum and step­dad Robin Twist. Rode hors­es at a near­by sta­ble for free (“I was a bad rid­er, but I was a rid­er”). Stopped rid­ing, ​“got into dif­fer­ent stuff”. Formed a band, White Eski­mo, with school­mates. Aged 16, tried out for the 2010 run of The X Fac­torwith a stir­ring but aver­age ren­di­tion of Ste­vie Wonder’s Isn’t She Love­ly. Cut from the show and put into a boy band with four oth­ers, Louis Tom­lin­son, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, and called One Direc­tion. Became inter­na­tion­al­ly famous, toured the globe. Zayn quit to go solo. Toured some more. Dat­ed but maybe didn’t date Car­o­line Flack, Rita Ora and Tay­lor Swift – whom he report­ed­ly dumped in the British Vir­gin Islands. (This rela­tion­ship, if noth­ing else, yield­ed an icon­ic, can­did shot of Swift look­ing deject­ed, being motored back to shore on the back of a boat called the Fly­ing Ray.) One Direc­tion dis­cussed dis­band­ing in 2014, actu­al­ly dis­solved in 2015. They remain friend­ly, and Styles offi­cial­ly went solo in 2016.

It’s been two years since his epony­mous debut and lead sin­gle, Sign of the Times, shocked the world and Elton John with its swag­ger­ing, soft rock sound. ​“It came out of left field and I loved it,” John says.

After 89 are­na-packed shows across five con­ti­nents grossed him, the label, whomev­er, over $61mil­lion, Styles had all but dis­ap­peared. He has emerged only inter­mit­tent­ly for pub­lic-fac­ing events – a Guc­ci after­par­ty per­for­mance here, a Met Gala co-chair­ing there. He relo­cat­ed from Los Ange­les back to Lon­don, sell­ing his Hol­ly­wood Hills house for $6 mil­lion and ship­ping his Jaguar E-type across the Atlantic so he could take joyrides on the M25.

“I’m not over LA,” he insists when I ask about the move. ​“My rela­tion­ship with LA changed a lot. What I want­ed from LA changed.”

A great escape, he would agree, is some­times nec­es­sary. He was in Tokyo for most of Jan­u­ary, hav­ing near­ly fin­ished his album. ​“I need­ed time to get out of that album frame-of-mind of: ​‘Is it fin­ished? Where am I at? What’s hap­pen­ing?’ I real­ly need­ed that time away from every­one. I was kind of just in Tokyo by myself.” His sab­bat­i­cal most­ly involved read­ing Haru­ki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle, singing Nir­vana at karaoke, writ­ing alone in his hotel room, lis­ten­ing to music and eaves­drop­ping on strangers in alien con­ver­sa­tion. ​“It was just a pos­i­tive time for my head and I think that impact­ed the album in a big way.”

Dur­ing this break he watched a lot of films, read a lot of books. Some­times he texts these rec­om­men­da­tions to his pal Michele at Guc­ci. He told Michele to watch the Ali Mac­graw film, Love Sto­ry. ​“We text what friends text about. He is the same [as me] in terms of he lives in his own world and he does his own thing. I love dress­ing up and he loves dress­ing up.”

Because he loves dress­ing up, Michele chose Styles to be the face of three Guc­ci Tai­lor­ing cam­paigns and of its new gen­der­less fra­grance, Mémoire d’une Odeur.

“The moment I met him, I imme­di­ate­ly under­stood there was some­thing strong around him,” Michele tells me. ​“I realised he was much more than a young singer. He was a young man, dressed in a thought­ful way, with uncombed hair and a beau­ti­ful voice. I thought he gath­ered with­in him­self the fem­i­nine and the masculine.”

Fash­ion, for Styles, is a play­ground. Some­thing he doesn’t take too seri­ous­ly. A cou­ple of years ago Har­ry Lam­bert, his styl­ist since 2015, acquired for him a pair of pink metal­lic Saint Lau­rent boots that he has nev­er been pho­tographed wear­ing. They are exceed­ing­ly rare – few pairs exist. Styles wears them ​“to get milk”. They are, in his words, ​“super-fun”. He’s not sure, but he has, ball­park, 50 pairs of shoes, as well as full clos­ets in at least three post­codes. He set­tles on an out­fit fair­ly quick­ly, maybe changes his T-shirt once before head­ing out, but most­ly knows what he likes.

What he may not ful­ly com­pre­hend is that sim­ply by being pho­tographed in a gar­ment he can spur the career of a design­er, as he has with Har­ris Reed, Palo­mo Spain, Charles Jef­frey, Alled-Martínez and a new favourite, Bode. Styles wore a SS16 Guc­ci flo­ral suit to the 2015 Amer­i­can Music Awards. When he was asked who made his suit on the red car­pet, Guc­ci began trend­ing world­wide on Twitter.

“It was one of the first times a male wore Alessandro’s run­way designs and, at the time, men were not tak­ing too many red car­pet risks,” says Lam­bert. ​“Who knows if it influ­enced oth­ers, but it was a spe­cial moment. Plus, it was fun see­ing the fans dress up in suits to come see Harry’s shows.”

Yet tra­di­tion­al gen­der codes of dress still have the minds of mid­dle Amer­i­ca in a choke­hold. Men can’t wear women’s clothes, say the online whingers, who have labelled him ​“trag­ic”, ​“a clown” and a Bowie wannabe. Styles doesn’t care. ​“What’s fem­i­nine and what’s mas­cu­line, what men are wear­ing and what women are wear­ing – it’s like there are no lines any more.”

Elton John agrees: ​“It worked for Marc Bolan, Bowie and Mick. Har­ry has the same qualities.”

Then there is the ques­tion of Styles’ sex­u­al­i­ty, some­thing he has admit­ted­ly ​“nev­er real­ly start­ed to label”, which will plague him until he does. Per­haps it’s part of his allure. He’s bran­dished a pride flag that read ​“Make Amer­i­ca Gay Again” on stage, and plant­ed a stake some­where left of cen­tre on sexuality’s rain­bow spectrum.

“In the posi­tion that he’s in, he can’t real­ly say a lot, but he chose a queer girl band to open for him and I think that speaks vol­umes,” Josette Maskin of the queer band MUNA told The Face ear­li­er this year.

“I get a lot of…” Styles trails off, wheels turn­ing on how he can dis­cuss sex­u­al­i­ty with­out real­ly answer­ing. ​“I’m not always super-out­spo­ken. But I think it’s very clear from choic­es that I make that I feel a cer­tain way about lots of things. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess I’m not…” He paus­es again, piv­ots. ​“I want every­one to feel wel­come at shows and online. They want to be loved and equal, you know? I’m nev­er unsup­port­ed, so it feels weird for me to over­think it for some­one else.”

Sex­u­al­i­ty aside, he must acknowl­edge that he has sex appeal. ​“The word ​‘sexy’ sounds so strange com­ing out of my mouth. So I would say that that’s prob­a­bly why I would not con­sid­er myself sexy.”

Har­ry Styles has emerged ful­ly-formed, an anachro­nis­tic rock star, vague in sen­si­bil­i­ty but des­tined to impress with a dis­arm­ing smile and a warm but firm handshake.

I recite to him a quote from Chrissie Hyn­de of The Pre­tenders about her time atop rock’s throne: ​“I nev­er got into this for the mon­ey or because I want­ed to join in the super­star sex around the swim­ming pools. I did it because the offer of a record con­tract came along and it seemed like it might be more fun than being a wait­ress. Now, I’m not so sure.”

Styles – who worked in a bak­ery in a small north­ern town some time before play­ing to 40,000scream­ing fans in South Amer­i­can are­nas – must have wit­nessed some shit, been invit­ed to a few pool­side sex par­ties, in his time.

“I’ve seen a cou­ple of things,” he nods in agree­ment. ​“But I’m still young. I feel like there’s still stuff to see.”

[heta-on-the-books]

Hetalia Ask Blogs June 2021

Africa:

Egypt

@a-mertalia-egypt (AU Art Blog)

@ask-gypt (Art Blog)

@ask-little-egypt (Child, Art Blog

@ask-hogwarts-egypt (AU Art Blog)

@ask-hogwarts-2p-egypt (AU 2p Art Blog)

Americas

America

@ask-aph-ajones (Art Blog)

@ask-catcafe-2pamerica (2p AU Art some lit Blog *2p America based, refer to multimuse*)

@ask-fallenangel-alfred (AU Art Blog)

@ask-Ivanslittlecapitalist (Art Ask Blog)

@ask-kingpin-al (Human 2p Art Blog)

@ask-schoolmaster-alfred (Human 1860s School AU Art Blog)

Canada

@ask-farmer-canada (au'ish Art Blog)

@ask-hetalia-canada (Art Blog 1p's Choose Your Own Adventure Blog)

@ask-telekinetic-matthew (Superpower AU Ask Blog)

Cuba

@ask-divinity-cuba

Ancients

Ancient Egypt

@ask-kemet (art Blog)

@ask-hogwarts-ancientegypt (AU Art Blog)

Britannia

@ask-his-flower-and-her-bear (Cosplay Blog, Cannon and OC Character)

Germania

@romemustbestopped (Cosplay Blog)

Persian Empire

@de-beste-persian-empire (Art Blog)

@ask-cohabitation-2p-persia (AU Art Blog)

@ask-hogwarts-persia (AU Art Blog)

Rome

@ask-rome (Art Blog)

@grandparomeaskblog (Cosplay, Art, Lit blog. Includes Constantinople OC)

Asia

China

@ask-badlydrawn2pchina (2p Art Blog)

India

(To be filled)

Japan

@ask-badlydrawn-japan (Art Blog)

@ask-bikerkuro (Human 2p/2p Nyo Art Blog)

Europe

England

@ask-earthbender-arthur (Avatar AU Art Blog) Hiatus

@ask-mr-biscuit (Cosplay Blog)

England

@askdoctoroliver (Human 2p Art Blog)

Finland

@ask-aph-finny (Art Blog)

France

@ask-marianne-nyo-france (art, writing)

Germany

@ask-hws-germanys (Art, Writing Multimuse, All different forms of HWS Germany.)

@ask-the-german-commander (Cosplay Blog)

@ask-mr-germany (Art Blog)

@askorcgermany (AU Blog)

@ask-useless-german (2p Art Blog)

@ask-the-useless-german (2p Cosplay Blog)

Italy

@the-ask-hetalia-italian-trio-blr (Feli, Romano, Seborga Art Blog)

@askitaliaromano (Cosplay Blog)

S.Italy

@the-ask-hetalia-italian-trio-blr (Feli, Romano, Seborga Art Blog)

@ask-aphexperimentalia (AU Multimuse)

@daretoshipromano (Romano Multiship ask blog, refer to info post here @ixruiin (Semi Art Blog)

Liechtenstein

@ask-badlydrawn-aphliechtenstein (Art Blog) *On Hiatus*

Luxembourg

(to be filled)

Netherlands

@ask-thenetherlands  (Art Blog)

@ask-the-other-dutchie (2p Art Blog)

Portugal

@aph-portugeese-of-wine (AU Art Blog)

Prussia

@askmspaintgilbird (Art Blog Gilbird)

@the-awesome-she (Nyo Art Blog)

@ask-east-prussia (2p Art Blog)

Russia

@colorfulonionglobe (semi art blog)

Scotland

@ask-aph-female-scotland (Nyo Cosplay Blog)

@ask-hetalia-scotland

Sweden

@asktheswedishdragqueens (1p/2p Human AU Art/lit)

Multimuse

@askamericanregions   (Art Multimuse Blog *United States: South, Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast*)

@ask-the-aph-aquarium (Art/lit Mertalia AU Blog)

@ask-aph-baltics (Fanart, incorrect quotes, fan fiction, memes) (muses Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia)

@cardverse-gercanmano (1p Art Blog, lit, script)  (Germany, Canada and Romano)

@ask-catcafe-2pamerica (AU Art some lit Blog) (Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Japan, Netherlands, Liechtenstein, China, 2p America)

@ask-aph-girls (Art Blog) (Aph Girls)

@ask-hungary-prussia (Multimuse Art Blog)

@ask-aphexperimentalia (AU Multimuse)

@ask-mertalia-2pegyptmohawk (AU Multimuse) (Little Egypt, Mohawk)

@aph-neighbors  (primarily Lovino, Feliciano, Ludwig, and Antonio) Cursed Hotel AU)

@ask-nyc-boroughs   (Art Miltimuse Blog *nyc boroughs*

@asktheaxispowers Writing Blog *1p Germany, Italy, Japan, Prussia, and Romano*)

@ask-the-cursed-axis-trio (Art AU Blog) (Italy Germany Japan)

@ask-the-aph-nordicverse (Art Multi AU Blog)

@ask-toystory-hetalia  (AU Multimuse Art Blog)

Oceanic

@ask-nyo-huttriver (Art Ask Blog)

OC’s @askamericanregions (Art Multimuse Blog *United States: South, Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast*)

@ask-aph-lebanon (Art Blog)

@ask-aph-mohawk (Art Blog *Native American Mohawk*)

@ask-north-dakota (Art Blog *Dakota*)

@ask-cohabitation-wisconsin (AU Art Blog, Wisconsin)

@ask-irlghana (Ghana)

@askmahousorrenia (Art AU Sorrenia (micronation) Blog)

[doueverwonder]

anyway if any of y'all thought I was done talking about my East and West Rome oc's you were wrong.

[doueverwonder]

Dionisio (Port) being a good big brother esp to Eurus (E. Rome) and Zephryos (W. Rome) is actually so important to me though.

like!! they're the reason Romulus disinherited him!!! But Dionisio doesn't care!! because they're his baby brothers!!! and he can't be mad at them for something they didn't choose!! and there's a general belief that he didn't like them bc they got the inheritance of Rome and he's literally about the fight the next person to spread that rumor!! He loved Eurus, and he loves Zephryos!! Bc!! They're!!! His!!! Baby!!! Brothers!!!

[doueverwonder]

listening to The Romantic Way by Winnetka Bowling League and thinking about Rome's kids, cause, we love them. They're great. They deserve the world, and also probably a more present dad.

[doueverwonder]

Todays Brainrot is sponsored by my own oc's and hc.

W. Rome - Zephryos - Decently smart - absolutely cannot apply himself tho - a functioning alcoholic - was in the military - got kicked out for messing around with girls - had his first kid (Romano) when he was like 17 - wasn't actually allowed to raise said kid - an artist but the kind that only drew naked guys - had too many human wives over the years - has 5 sons from said human wives

E. Rome - Eurus - also decently smart - but he can apply himself so he seems smarter - is often an unwilling accomplice in his twins (Zephryos) schemes - was also in the military - requested early leave to go learn stuff and was given it? - at least tries to be responsible - Gifted Kid Syndrome (aka would prob have an ADHD diagnosis in modern day) - the man has like,,, 3 pet cats - married Keivan-Rus unwillingly - is Ukraine, Russia and Belarus's dad

[doueverwonder]

idk if this will tell you anything about my oc's but both my East and West Rome ocs would unironically listen to the theme song from Pair of Kings and All Hail King Julien.

[doueverwonder]

HWS Rome's Kids. 

to go with the Germania post lol

Portugal East Rome West Rome Greece France Spain Egypt Romania Cyprus Malta

Grandkids column includes the ever growing number of Italy brothers, Monaco, Moldova, etc...

And then he has a debated kid which consists of Israel, who no one is quite sure about. (Judea refused to tell people who his father was until the day she died, but she was also living under Rome when he was born)