Harry Styles, fake stage invaders and a censored Peter Mandelson joke: the biggest moments at the Brit Awards
harry styles opened the ceremony with his return single "Aperture, " a UK No 1 in release week that is already dropping down the charts, and paired a stage moment with a red-carpet look that kept headlines buzzing. The night was notable not just for performances and fashion but for protests, ITV censors in action, fake stage invaders and a censored Peter Mandelson joke.
Harry Styles and the Chanel pinstripe: look 39 from Métiers d’art 2026
The carefully plotted red-carpet moment landed on Chanel: a black-and-white bouclé pinstripe jacket with matching trousers and a pale mint pinstripe cotton shirt, described as look 39 from Chanel’s Métiers d’art 2026 collection. Styles’s stylist, Harry Lambert, helped secure the look, which Vogue said was womenswear-focused and built around a very specific shoe moment — a ballet pump and a broader turn toward French-girl flats. The write-up noted the outfit aligned with the style direction for his latest album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally., and that Styles kept the look on for the Brits stage moment to come.
Opening with "Aperture": live details and musical comparisons
harry styles opened the show with "Aperture, " described as euphoric yet faintly distant. The single was a UK No 1 in release week and is fairly swiftly dropping down the charts, perhaps because it is a stylistic outlier. Onstage, he jived with his considerable band and backing singers, twitching in time with dancers in snail T-shirts and sunglasses and allowing only a couple of grins. Critics picked up vocal lines that recalled Kings of Convenience and Whitest Boy Alive singer Erlend Oye, and even detected a touch of David Bowie in his tailoring, handsomeness as he ages and a kind of thousand-yard stare in performance.
ITV censors, fake stage invaders and the censored Peter Mandelson joke
The ceremony was described as protest-filled and relatively edgy, with ITV censors said to have had their work cut out. There were fake stage invaders during the event, and a Peter Mandelson joke was censored; the content of that joke is unclear in the provided context. Artists on the night also voiced alarm over Reform UK’s rise, summed up by the line "We’re going into a dark place. " The event carried the banner "Brit awards 2026: the full list of winners, " even as pockets of controversy threaded the evening.
Olivia Dean, Ronson, Raye and surprise guests: the night's performances and winners
The night belonged to Olivia Dean, who was a deserved four-time winner for material from 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, " and she carried that energy into a performance of "Man I Need, " full of wriggles of pleasure and emphatic engagement with the song’s syncopation. Ronson received the outstanding contribution to music award; his accompanying performance saw him scratching vinyl as Ghostface Killah delivered an avuncular roll through "Ooh Wee, " before Ronson moved into Amy Winehouse material that underscored the ambition of his earlier production choices. Raye’s performance of "Nightingale Lane, " a song about the London street where she watched her first love walk away from their relationship, climaxed in a stunning, wordless expulsion of pain. Observers noted Raye is now playing that pre-Beatles-influenced sound in arenas and on this Brit stage. Bruno Mars did not perform "Uptown Funk" despite having a new album to promote — phone calls were surely sent his way? — and surprise guest Dua Lipa added A-list stardust to performances of "Dance the Night" and "Electricity. " Ultra-expressive performances from Rosalía and Wolf Alice were also part of the night’s musical showcase.
Fashion notes beyond Chanel and unfinished lines in coverage
Pre-show speculation had included possible Jonathan Anderson for Dior ready-to-wear, rare archival Prada and other imagined moments, but Chanel clinched the deal. The fashion rollout around Styles’s era included colourful, humour-filled choices elsewhere — a mustard Miu Miu jumper, a Prada bowling pin shirt and tie, Elton John-adjacent sunglasses from General Eyewear Vintage, and a tendency to source accessories some deem "feminine, " such as mint-green, bow-bedecked Dior mules. The Vogue write-up suggested that if the Brits are anything to go by, feather boas and harlequin jumpsuits are out, and French-girl flats are in. Coverage of the night itself included an unfinished line: "There was a similar feel to Rosa" — that line is incomplete and unclear in the provided context.
