Harry Styles fans defend singer after author Candace Owens attacks him for wearing a dress on Vogue cover

Olivia Wilde and Jameela Jamil are among the celebrities who have defended Harry Styles’s historic Vogue cover in which he wears a dress.

Styles made history on Friday when he appeared on the front of the US fashion bible in a Gucci dress and tuxedo jacket. The front, shot by Tyler Mitchell, was the first time a man had appeared solo on the cover.

The photoshoot sparked conversations online around masculinity, gender and dressing, with some prominent conservative commentators, including author Candace Owens and commentator Ben Shapiro, criticising the ditorial.

Owens wrote on her Twitter page: “Bring back manly men.”

She added: “There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. It is an outright attack.” [sic]

Shapiro shared her tweet and wrote: “Anyone who pretends this is not a referendum on masculinity for men to don floofy dresses is treating you like a full-on idiot.”

However, actor and director Wilde, who is currently working on a film in which Styles-stars, replied to Owens’ tweets with: “You’re pathetic.”

The Good Place actress Jamil added: “Manly is whatever you want it to be.”

Styles, who found fame in boyband One Direction, has previously appeared on the cover of Guardian Weekend in a dress.

The pop star, who is regularly celebrated for his style, spoke about his fashion sense with Vogue.

He said: “You can never be overdressed. There’s no such thing.

“The people that I looked up to in music — Prince and David Bowie and Elvis and Freddie Mercury and Elton John — they’re such showmen.

“As a kid it was completely mind-blowing. Now I’ll put on something that feels really flamboyant, and I don’t feel crazy wearing it.

“I think if you get something that you feel amazing in, it’s like a superhero outfit."

He added: “Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with.

“What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away.

“When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women’, once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play."

He said he thinks women’s clothes are “amazing”.

“I’ll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing," he said.

“It’s like anything—anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself.

“There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes.

“I’ve never really thought too much about what it means, it just becomes this extended part of creating something.”