As usual, I’ve been thinking about Harry Styles. Nothing too intense, just wondering how he’s doing, what kind of sweater he’s wearing, that sort of thing. There hasn’t been much news from him since the beginning of lockdown (save for the delicious orgy that was the music video for “Watermelon Sugar”), and more recently he released “Dream With Me,” a 30-minute “sleep story” on the meditation app Calm. (I haven’t tried it, but apparently it contains such relaxing and vaguely erotic lines as: “Somehow now, we’re in a cabin, taking in this view, as a fire crackles in the corner, just for me and you,” and “We dig our toes in cool wet sand, then sit and face the sea, and let the sand wash over us, alone just you and me.”)
Anyway, I’ve been wondering what he’s up to lately, and early Saturday morning there was finally an update. It came in the form of a photo of a fully mustachioed Harry Styles, in gold-tinted aviators and a striped tee, floating around social media. In the images, Styles is holding a bottle of balsamic vinegar and a copy of Bread Is Gold, chef Massimo Bottura’s zero-waste cookbook, and is standing next to chef Massimo Bottura himself, who I at first thought was Joaquin Phoenix:
Needless to say, there’s a lot to take in here, especially when it comes to the facial hair of it all. You see, it’s a full walrus mustache, and I’m not sure how I feel about a full mustache on anyone (except for Antonio Banderas, of course). But for Harry, and his perfect Cupid’s bow? What’s next, a beard to obscure his Botticellian jawline?
In any case, I’m happy to see that he’s happy and healthy, mustachioed and otherwise. The photos were revealed via Bottura’s Instagram Stories, and it seems that the singer is holidaying in Modena, Italy, where he visited the chef’s famed, three-Michelin-starred restaurant, Osteria Francescana. Personally, I’m hoping that the little visit means that Styles is being cast as extra in Luca Guadagnino’s inevitably horny new show about young people coming-of-age during a sultry Italian summer.