Billy Porter, Harry Styles
Billy Porter Slams ‘Vogue’ For Featuring Harry Styles In A Dress For Cover Photo: I Was The 1st One Doing It, Yet They Put A Straight, White Man In A Dress For Their Cover
Billy Porter isn’t happy about Harry Styles rocking a dress for a Vogue cover.
Last year, Harry Styles sparked lots of controversy when he wore a dress on the cover of the December 2020 issue of the fashion magazine. He was the first male to cover Vogue solo.
Now, Billy Porter is sharing his thoughts. He said in a recent interview that he wasn’t a fan of how Harry Styles was saluted for not complying with society’s standards concerning gender roles. Billy Porter said he was “the first one doing it,” adding:
“I changed the whole game. I. Personally. Changed. The. Whole. Game. And that is not ego, that is just fact. I was the first one doing it and now everybody is doing it.”
He continued,
“I feel like the fashion industry has accepted me because they have to. I’m not necessarily convinced and here is why. I created the conversation [about non-binary fashion] and yet Vogue still put Harry Styles, a straight white man, in a dress on their cover for the first time.”
While he said he’s “not dragging” the One Direction singer, he questioned:
“He is the one you’re going to try and use to represent this new conversation?”
He further claimed that Harry Styles
“doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do. This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned now. All he has to do is be white and straight.”
As for Harry Styles, he previously told Vogue his thoughts on gender norms and said,
“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.”
Do you agree with Billy Porter? Comment and let us know.