Harry Styles is, arguably, one of the biggest stars in the world right now. The former member of One Direction has gone on to have two successful studio albums on his own, as well as an acting career. Apart from that, Styles has also been pushing boundaries both in his personal fashion and in clothing expression with his own brand, Pleasing.
But now, styles is getting a childhood hero to join his campaign: Mick Fleetwood! The frontman for the band Fleetwood Mac is the face of the next line from Pleasing, which explores the psychedelic and has fun with its shirts and nail polish colors.
In a Vogue interview for the line, Fleetwood talked about his connection to the musician, what brought him into the Pleasing campaign, and how his music has inspired someone like Styles. But this was also a big deal for Styles. “He’s a magical man,” Harry Styles told Vogue of Mick Fleetwood. “Mick is someone who brings me—and countless others—great joy. I felt there couldn’t be a better embodiment of Pleasing, or a person who could so naturally capture the wizardry that we love.”
Fleetwood Mac & Harry Styles
Their friendship began when Fleetwood brought his daughters to a One Direction concert. “My 12-year-old daughters said, ‘Dad we want to go and see Harry Styles!’’ When he met Styles, though, it was something a long time coming for the singer, given that Styles also works with Stevie Nicks. “Two factions from completely different worlds came together,” said Fleetwood. “Without my girls wanting to see One Direction, we—Stevie [Nicks] and I—never would have met Harry.”
When Vogue asked Fleetwood about the line, he explained why he joined the campaign. “Pleasing is this experience of, ‘Why not?’ or ‘I’ve never thought of that’—and that’s why I’m part of it,” explained Fleetwood. “It says, here’s something, either literally or figuratively, to hold your hand while we’re all on this journey. That’s what it means to me.”
A fated relationship
Fleetwood Mac has played an important part in Styles’ career. Not only did Styles listen to their music as a child, but he also sang songs like “The Chain” off of Rumours when he toured with his album Harry Styles. And, as someone who saw it, it is clear how much Styles loves singing the songs written, in part, by both Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks. For Fleetwood, though, his chance meeting with Styles came when he was trying to “blend in” at a meet and greet.
“The magical mystery tour started probably eight years ago. I took my daughters, Ruby and Tessa, who were 12, to see one of the last One Direction shows at the Rose Bowl,” Fleetwood said. “Very generously, their organization made it possible for us to go backstage for one of those meet-and-greets. If you’re a kid around your parents, you want mom and dad to disappear. But what happened was immediately Harry and the band started hovering around me while I’m trying to hide and get out of the way and be the dad that wasn’t there.”
But Mick Fleetwood’s attempt at hiding didn’t work out, and his girls realized that Styles knew who he was. “Eventually, the girls realized Dad was actually causing a bit of a commotion. Anyways, that’s when Harry and I first met. We really connected because it turned out Harry had been brought up around Fleetwood Mac’s music when he was a child. And so on and off for years we’ve had this passing-in-the-night relationship, which has included him doing Fleetwood Mac songs and doing countless little and big things with Stevie.”
Breaking the binary mold of fashion
What makes Styles so special, at least to me, is his willingness to embrace himself and his style despite the backlash he often receives. When he made history as the first man to grace the cover of Vogue, he was then the subject of ridicule from Republican parrots like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens.
Fleetwood is no stranger to breaking fashion molds. Bands like Fleetwood Mac helped to change how many viewed the gender binary in fashion through the ’60s and ’70s, but being the face of Pleasing’s new line excited Fleetwood, especially with the nail polish.
“Oh, I loved that. I kept the varnish on for two weeks! Back in the day in London, I used to wear near polish and all sorts of stuff, and the attitude was, “so what?” It didn’t have anything to do with sexuality. It’s not about that. It’s about having fun,” Fleetwood said about the Pleasing nail polish line and his own experience with polish. “If you look at half the tribes of ancient history, men and women all dress up in beautiful, colorful things. No one thinks anything one way or the other, which is the point. During the shoot I noticed some of the nail colors were really muted, like the light blue and the pinks and the greens. I said, ‘You might wanna pick one of the red colors!’ About three or four days after the shoot was over. I still had the nail varnish on and thought, I can actually see where my hands are going. I’m not kidding you! It’s really useful, and I thought, ‘I’m not taking this stuff off!’ When you pick a glass up, you actually connect with what you’re doing, which is what style is all about.”
But he also went on to comment on Fleetwood Mac’s influence and his generation’s sense of style. “When I think about what happened in my generation, we had a sense of freedom, a sense of feeling that what had happened before didn’t need to be repeated,” he said. “Millions and millions of people in my world, our generation, saw that, felt that…. But imagine the ’60s right now with social media. One might be so bold as to say that slightly naive pipe dream of everyone not being judgmental might spread like wildfire. Being reminded of that premise, I think there’s a huge amount of similarity now asking, ‘Why not? What gives you the right to close me down?’ It’s not confrontational. It’s just, why would you want to do that to anybody or anything? In our time, if someone went to a concert with blue paint all over their face, you go, ‘How cool is that?’ You wouldn’t say one thing or the other. That’s how I’ve always felt. Don’t be judgmental and have fun with it. That’s what Pleasing represents.”
Pleasing for the fans
This connection between both Mick Fleetwood and Harry Styles is exciting for fans, but so is supporting Harry Styles in his adventure to normalize things like nail polish and skin care for everyone. His Pleasing line having Mick Fleetwood at its front might usher in the same kind of nonsense his Vogue cover did, but that doesn’t seem to phase either Fleetwood or Styles.
The new Pleasing line drops later this month.
(featured image: Pleasing)
