For all the fanfare around Harry Styles's wardrobe (he was your best-dressed man last year, and is a contender again this time) we don't actually see him all that much. Fewer public outings mean less chance to be mobbed by hormonal fans. But when he does leave the house, we see why he scored a Gucci campaign. And why, frankly, he's courting a Lanvin one in New York City wearing that very brand.
Last year, the Dunkirk star was in his Seventies phase, all silk suits, flares and Princely purple (that's the funky one, not the married-to-Kate one). Now, though, he's taken a trip further back, to a time when men wore wide trousers and drank on the job.
If the 1920s was one big post-war party, the decade that followed was its psychic hangover. And its style was in flux. Men wanted to have fun, but after the crash, the public mood was dour and money was tight. Your salary (if you still had one, that is) was for either rent or suits imported from Paris. Not both.
As often happens after global trauma, men felt the need to reassert their masculinity. Politically, that meant rearmament and military brinksmanship. In the more refined world of fashion, it translated to broader shoulders, slimmer waists and wider legs: something Styles achieves here with clever layering and a pair of ballooning pinstriped trousers.
If the Thirties were miserable, though, Styles was anything but in New York. The stock market's booming, old sport, and menswear's a bull market. So that means clashing prints clashes, Bovidae-emblazoned knitwear and pink shoes. In other words, everything we've come to expect when a wild Harry Styles appears. And unlike some of the stuff the ex-One Directioner steps out in, it's a look that can slot straight into non-pop star wardrobes – just tap the look-back approach of brands like E. Tautz, Edward Crutchley, Gucci and Lanvin.
So don't be afraid of the Thirties. Even the kids are getting old before their time.
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