Harry Styles and Alessandro Michele’s fashion romance is still going strong

The worlds of fashion and entertainment have never been more intertwined, and this symbiosis has resulted in many important friendships between stars and designers: Timothée Chalamet and Haider Ackermann. Luca Guadagnino and Jonathan Anderson. But few are as visible as Harry Styles and Alessandro Michele’s alliance. Two industry titans whose careers have peaked over the past decade, the English pop star and the Italian designer have been friends for almost that long.

After his boy band One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016, Styles spent most of the next few years launching a solo career wearing Michele’s Gucci, where the designer served as creative director from 2015 to 2022. Before Michele left the brand earlier this year, he and Styles even collaborated on a Gucci capsule collection, featuring the sort of dandy suits and psychedelic prints the musician became synonymous with while promoting his third studio EP, Harry’s house.

It’s no surprise that Styles and Michele’s friendship has endured through the designer’s recent move to Valentino, for which he debuted his first collection in Paris this weekend. Styles sat in the front row, wearing a pumpkin-orange crewneck sweater embroidered with a small Valentino “V” logo, the hems accented by a ruffled collar and the cuffs of a ruffled blue shirt peeking out from underneath. The rest of Styles’ outfit – dark trousers, espresso-colored leather loafers and orange aviator glasses – was certainly more subdued than his former Gucci style. The outfit was more in line with the musician’s casual style, which has recently oscillated between simple branded sweaters and trousers and, more recently, cheeky sportswear.

During the show, Styles posed for photos with fellow actors Colman Domingo and Salma Hayek (the latter of whom is the wife of François-Henri Pinault, CEO of Gucci parent company/Valentino shareholder Kering), as well as model/former first lady of France Carla Bruni and Italian director Paolo Sorrentino.