Harry Styles — how harry styles opened the Brit awards
harry styles opened the Brit awards with his return single, "Aperture", a UK No 1 in release week that is fairly swiftly dropping down the charts. The ceremony was protest-filled and relatively edgy, with censors having work to do and ultra-expressive performances from Rosalía, Wolf Alice and more.
Harry Styles’s stage return
Styles opened the show singing "Aperture", a euphoric yet faintly distant song described as a stylistic outlier in pop right now. He jived with his considerable band and backing singers, twitching in time with dancers wearing snail T-shirts and sunglasses, and offered only a couple of grins rather than full giddiness.
Aperture and the performance
The single was a UK No 1 in release week but is fairly swiftly dropping down the charts. Stylistic notes on the vocal lines drew comparisons to Erlend Oye, the Kings of Convenience and Whitest Boy Alive singer, and a critic detected a touch of David Bowie in the performance — both in tailoring and a thousand-yard stare that took in foreground and distance.
Olivia Dean’s four wins
The night belonged to Olivia Dean, a deserved four-time winner for the magnificent, cosmopolitan material on her album The Art of Loving. In her acceptance speech she said her winning album “is just about love, and loving each other in a world that feels loveless right now”. Dean embodied that spirit in a lively performance of "Man I Need", leaning into every curve of the song’s syncopation and filling her stage moments with wriggles of pleasure and an "ahh this is happening!" facial expression as she celebrated love’s first flush and the fun of the romantic chase.
Ronson, Ghostface Killah and Dua Lipa
Ronson was given the outstanding contribution to music award. His accompanying performance underlined the odd but profoundly influential path he has taken through pop: still looking as nerdish and boyish as he did two decades ago, he scratched vinyl as Ghostface Killah gave an avuncular roll through "Ooh Wee". The set moved into Amy Winehouse material, underscoring how ambitious, even ill-advised Ronson’s vision once seemed — from slow symphonic pieces to big-band takes on songs like "Valerie" that referenced orchestral pop and jazz of the pre-Beatles era. The piece noted that today Raye is playing that sound in arenas and on this Brit awards stage, a world reshaped by Ronson. It was also remarked that Bruno Mars didn’t make the effort to perform "Uptown Funk" here, particularly given he has his own new album to promote — phone calls were surely sent his way? — so credit went to surprise guest Dua Lipa for bringing A-list stardust to "Dance the Night" and "Electricity".
Raye’s Nightingale Lane moment
Raye’s performance of "Nightingale Lane" — a song about the London street where she watched her first love walk away from their relationship — felt like pure unmoored expression, climaxing in a stunningly sung wordless expulsion of pain. There was a similar feel to Rosa
Red carpet and wardrobe choices
In the week before the Brit Awards there were murmurs that Harry Styles’s red-carpet look would be fabulous, womenswear focused and include a very specific shoe moment. His stylist Harry Lambert helped secure a Chanel look: a black-and-white bouclé pinstripe jacket with matching trousers and a pale mint pinstripe cotton shirt — identified as look 39 from Chanel’s Métiers d’art 2026 collection. The fashion rollout around his latest album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally., has been colour-saturated, from a mustard Miu Miu jumper to a Prada bowling pin shirt and tie, and has leaned into humour-filled accessories such as Elton John-adjacent sunglasses sourced by General Eyewear Vintage and a penchant for items deemed “feminine”, including mint-green, bow-bedecked Dior mules.
Style signals for 2026 tour
Styles kept the Chanel ensemble on for his Brits stage moment. The appearance marked the first time he has flexed his vocal skills live in his “Aperture” era, and the look was read as a tease of what to expect from his 2026 tour: feather boas and harlequin jumpsuits were said to be out, and French-girl flats were noted as in. Industry speculation before the ceremony even included possible unseen Jonathan Anderson for Dior ready-to-wear — his sophomore women’s show is in Paris on 3 March — but ultimately the Chanel look prevailed.
The event also unfolded in a wider context labelled Brit awards 2026, with artists voicing alarm over Reform UK’s rise and a line summing that mood: “We’re going into a dark place”.
censors had their work cut out in a protest-filled ceremony that mixed political edge with exuberant, ultra-expressive musical moments from Rosalía, Wolf Alice and others.
harry styles’s opening and the evening’s sequence — from Olivia Dean’s multiple wins to Ronson’s retrospective tribute, the Raye climax and the surprise guest moments — together defined one of the most talked-about Brit awards ceremonies in recent years.
