In case you missed it, Harry Styles announced that he’ll be releasing his third solo album, Harry’s House, on May 20 via Columbia Records. As Pitchfork pointed out, the title is a reference to Joni Mitchell’s 1975 song “Harry’s House / Centerpiece.” (Not only does he have her approval, but Joni tweeted that she loves it.) While this is obviously an exciting moment for all his stans, what I simply couldn’t get enough of is the album cover photographed by Hanna Moon. I’ll leave the full outfit breakdown to Vogue but here’s a spoiler: he’s dressed “head-to-toe” in Molly Goddard.
The image depicts the pop star standing upside down on the ceiling of a sparse living room– hand on hip with the other one delicately placed on his chin, Harry poses like the thinking face emoji. It begs the question, is this a man mid-thought or in a deep state of confusion? Perhaps he’s also wondering why there’s a vase of pink tulips on the floor?
Of course, the only pieces of furniture in view are vintage—there’s a rusty orange Milo Baughman or Pace-style tubular chrome loveseat that was probably reupholstered, a table that sort of looks like Marcel Breuer’s Laccio, and a white Giandomenico Belotti 109 Spaghetti lounge chair. I spent the past 72 hours on every corner of the internet trying to identify them all, but there are some mysteries that are too complex to solve!
A wooden framed painting with white flowers on a sage green background hangs on the wall near the arched doorway, which viewers are invited to enter through You Are Home. (According to Billboard, the website updates daily with a different setting from the cover of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature and Selected Essays to Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and the Cavallini mushroom puzzle.)
The charming aesthetic curated by creative director Molly Hawkins and set designer Patience Harding is a minimalist grandmillennial’s fantasy, especially with the beige walls and carpet. Natural light pours through the pearly white lace curtains in the window opposite a pleated table lamp and a plate of what appears to be a single sunny side up egg carefully placed on a tiny table. Even though there isn’t much going on in this scene, what I’ve gathered from it is that this is not an empty house. In contrast to being read as “nobody’s home,” Harry’s house feels like it’s truly been lived in. There’s a palpable warmth permeating through the room with an air of tenderness; all are welcome and it beckons: “Please come inside my most intimate space.”
Observing from another angle, this room is the polar opposite of the “Damn B****, You Live Like This?” meme starring Max and Roxanne from Disney’s 1995 classic A Goofy Movie. While it’s all clearly a metaphor for a house inside his mind, if this were actually a real place that Harry inhabited it might be located somewhere in California like West Hollywood, Malibu, Santa Monica, or Long Beach. (Remember the apartment in Marriage Story?) The horseshoe-shaped doorway suggests that the architecture might be Spanish-Moorish colonial, a signature style in California, but it’s hard to tell while looking from the inside out.
In other words, it’s a vibe.
