Styles released his skincare and nail polish brand Pleasing in November. With pearlescent nail varnishes and serums for skin and lips, it has been greeted with universal enthusiasm. Kelly launched genderless nail brand UN/DN LAQR last month, featuring polishes in pink, lilac and aqua, modelled by hands with long fingernails. “That [these men] have beauty brands that are explicitly genderless reflects the trends that are happening within fashion and, of course, capitalism,” says Rosewarne.
Pete Davidson (pictured left at the Met Gala) is dating Kim Kardashian.Credit:AP/Getty
It’s a long way from the days of Lynx two-in-one gel and shaving foam. Or as one Twitter user put it, “Remember when we used “Metrosexual” because we needed to distinguish that there are straight cis men who shower?”
“The term ‘metrosexual’ was, for a brief period of time, being used to describe things like men’s sculpted facial hair and an interest in fashion,” says Rosewarne.
“Most uses of the word metrosexual weren’t referencing politics or social change or, in fact, anything much to do with gender,” continues Rosewarne, “But rather, were more simplistic, focusing on men’s interest in their appearance – something that has disproportionately been associated with women.”
Although the other cultural moment of young men dating powerful, beautiful women, is not really new, what is new is for this type of guy (younger with little to prove, and far from the stereotypical masculine ideal) to have the unadulterated gaze of such women turned squarely on them.
These women are sex symbols. Kardashian and Fox in particular built their brands on their looks. Wilde recently posed naked to promote her partnership with a new skincare line.
Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde.Credit:Getty
All three don’t just have burgeoning careers, but kids as well. And they each have an older ex-husband who fits within the definition of traditional masculinity. Kardashian’s ex-husband Kanye West, known as much for his fashion design as his music, and who has already styled his new girlfriend, Julia Fox, in clothes he’s picked out for her, once hopped on a plane to Paris because he didn’t like his then-wife’s outfit and wanted to re-style her. Jason Sudeikis, Wilde’s ex, famously wore a hoodie to accept his Golden Globe during lockdown for his role in Ted Lasso, a wholesome comedy about a men’s soccer team in which he sports a non-ironic moustache. Before Sudeikis, Wilde was married to an Italian Prince. And Fox told The Washington Post that having a son with older actor Brian Austin Green when she was 26 helped her find purpose outside what she described as the “horrendous, patriarchal, misogynistic hell that was Hollywood at the time.”
So what’s going on? Is it the pandemic? That we should eat, drink and date heavily-tattooed boys, for tomorrow we die? Or is it that the acceptance of gender non-conforming roles isn’t limited to Generation Z?
Perhaps these women, who’ve garnered significant amounts of wealth and power throughout their careers, women who have effectively out-shone their former spouses, already understand first-hand what it means to no longer conform to traditional gender norms?
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And after staring down the barrel of the red-hot male gaze for so long, have they grown weary of it? Perhaps the scrutiny they’ve faced for decades has given them a type of fearlessness that these men might be drawn to.
Wilde met Styles after casting him in her upcoming movie, Don’t Worry Darling. Before they were officially an item, she expressed her reasons to US Vogue.
“[Harry’s] very modern, and I hope that this brand of confidence as a male that Harry has –truly devoid of any traces of toxic masculinity – is indicative of his generation and therefore the future of the world.”
As far as celebrity trends go, this one might be a keeper.
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