He has got a practice, whenever he’s produced definitive declaration, of increasing their chin and nodding only a little, as though to choose whether he nevertheless will follow himself. “I think it is an extremely free, and freeing, time. I do believe folks are asking, ‘Why not?’ a complete lot more. Which excites me personally. It is not merely clothing where lines have now been blurred, it is going across so things that are many. You are thought by me can connect it to music, and exactly how genres are blurring…”

Sex, too, We say.

“Yep,” claims Styles. “Yep.”

There’s a popular perception, we state, which you don’t define as directly. The words to your tracks, the garments you decide to wear, perhaps the sleeve of one’s brand new record – all among these things get picked apart for clues that you’re bisexual. Has anybody ever asked you however?

“Um. I assume I haaaaave been asked? But, I dunno. Why?”

You suggest, why ask issue?

“Yeah, i do believe i actually do imply that. It is perhaps not like I’m sitting on a solution, and protecting it, and keeping it back. It is perhaps maybe not a full situation of: I’m not telling you cos We don’t want to share bicupid promo code with you. It’s maybe maybe perhaps not: ooh this is certainly mine plus it’s perhaps not yours.”

The facts then?

“It’s: whom cares? Does that produce feeling? It’s simply: whom cares?”

Dress and shirt, Comme diverses Garçons. Photograph: Samuel Bradley/The Guardian. Stylist: Harry Lambert at Bryant Artists. Locks: Paul Hanlon. Makeup Products: Florrie White. Set design: Samuel Pidgen

I guess my only concern, then, is mostly about the items that seems like clue dropping. Because in the event that you don’t wish individuals to care, why hint? Make the record sleeve for Fine Line. A splash of magenta, the design seems to gesture at the trans and bisexual pride flags with its horizontal pink and blue stripes. Which will be that is great the individual behind it is actually a straight guy, sprinkling LGBTQ crumbs that lead nowhere. Does that produce feeling?

Styles nods. “Am I sprinkling in nuggets of intimate ambiguity in an attempt to become more interesting? No.” As for the remainder, he claims, “in terms of exactly exactly just how we wanna gown, and exactly exactly what the record sleeve’s going to be, we have a tendency to make choices with regards to collaborators I would like to make use of. I would like items to look a particular method. Perhaps perhaps maybe Not because it will make me look gay, or it creates me look directly, or it creates me look bisexual, but because i believe it appears to be cool. And much more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s a thing that’s enjoyable. Really? we can’t say I’ve given it any longer idea than that.”

Inside our musty part associated with the pub we’ve somehow passed a few hours in intense conversation. We’ll lighten up, before Styles heads house, with some talk about clever movies (wedding tale), stupider viral videos (the little boy who’s just learned your message “apparently”), that favourite-superhero stuff, most likely, has its own destination. He speaks in regards to the interested dual time scheme of a pop star’s life – those crammed 18-hour times then the unexpected empty off-time whenever Styles will dsicover himself walking miles across London to purchase a novel, afterward congratulating himself: “Well, that’s an hour or so filled.”

I ask if he’s minded any of my questions before we stand up.

He pushes down their lips, perhaps recalling them one after another, then shakes their mind. “What I would personally state, in regards to the entire being-asked-about-my-sexuality thing – it is a task for which you could easily get expected. Also to complain about any of it, to express you hate it, but still perform the job, that is just ridiculous. You respect that someone’s gonna ask. And you also wish they may not get a response. which they respect”

He is told by me i do.

Styles needs to find those lads whom wanted an image. He scoops his phone from the dining table and flicks their thumb across the display screen. Recently, he states, as he messes around on his phone in a idle minute, it is mostly to check out videos – videos that their buddies have actually delivered him, for which their young ones sing along to music he’s made. “Never gets old,” Styles says, beaming.

Many years ago, as he emerged from the boyband, blinking, shattered, he set himself three tasks: prioritise buddies, learn to be a grownup, achieve a balance that is proper the major together with little. Comprehensive stadiums, provocative outfits – Styles truly really loves these specific things. “But I guess I’ve realised, also,” he claims, “that the coolest things are not at all times the things that are cool. Have you any idea the reason?” He grabs their parka along with his phone and, just a little stooped, minds for house.

• Harry Styles’s record Fine Line is away now.