Harry Styles, fake stage invaders and a censored Peter Mandelson joke: why 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 ITV censors said to have had their work cut out amid fake stage invaders and a censored Peter Mandelson joke.
Opening with Aperture
Styles opened the show with "Aperture, " a song described as euphoric yet faintly distant, conjuring the feeling of being on a dancefloor and slightly out of it. His performance saw him jiving with his considerable band and backing singers, twitching in time with dancers in snail T-shirts and sunglasses, and offering only a couple of grins while remaining one level above the moment. The single was a UK No 1 in release week and is noted as a real stylistic outlier in pop right now; it is fairly swiftly dropping down the charts.
Harry Styles red-carpet look
In the days before the Brits there were murmurs about harry styles’s red-carpet appearance: a womenswear-focused look with a specific shoe moment. The final decision was Chanel. The look was 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 thoughtful red-carpet look was kept on for the Brits stage moment.
Fashion rollout and influences
The Chanel look sits alongside a wider fashion rollout linked to Styles’s latest album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. The album artwork was shot by Johnny Dufort and the rollout has been described as colour-saturated, with references such as a mustard Miu Miu jumper and a Prada bowling pin shirt and tie. Accessories have leaned into pieces often deemed "feminine, " including mint-green, bow-bedecked Dior mules and Elton John-adjacent sunglasses sourced by General Eyewear Vintage. The discussion of potential designers mentioned Harry Lambert as Styles’s stylist and even speculated about Jonathan Anderson for Dior, with his sophomore women’s show noted as being in Paris on 3 March amid autumn/winter 2026 shows rumbling on and the backdrop of Milan Fashion Week — including references to a Bella Hadid-ification of the Prada runway and Maria Grazia Chiuri bringing back Karl Lagerfeld collars at Fendi.
Olivia Dean’s four wins
The night belonged to Olivia Dean, a deserved four-time winner for the 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 performed "Man I Need, " leaning into every curve of the song’s syncopation and filling her performance with wriggles of pleasure and "ahh this is happening!" facial expressions.
Ronson tribute and surprise guests
Ronson was given the outstanding contribution to music award. His accompanying performance featured him happily scratching vinyl as Ghostface Killah gave an avuncular roll through "Ooh Wee, " before moving into Amy Winehouse material that highlighted how ambitious Ronson’s vision must have seemed at the time — from slow symphonic material to parpy big-band arrangements like "Valerie" that drew on orchestral pop and jazz. The account notes that Raye is now playing that sound in arenas and on the Brit awards stage, "thanks to a world reshaped by Ronson. " Bruno Mars did not appear to perform "Uptown Funk" at the event, despite having his own new album to promote — phone calls were surely sent his way? Surprise guest Dua Lipa brought A-list stardust with performances of "Dance the Night" and "Electricity. " Raye’s performance of "Nightingale Lane, " about the London street where she watched her first love walk away, culminated in a stunningly sung, wordless expulsion of pain.
Protests, censorship and other moments
The ceremony was described as protest-filled and relatively edgy, with ITV censors busy dealing with incidents on the night, including fake stage invaders. A censored Peter Mandelson joke was singled out among the night’s curbs. Artists at the ceremony also voiced alarm over Reform UK’s rise. The coverage ends mid-sentence on another performance reference: "There was a similar feel to Rosa" — unclear in the provided context.
Across music and fashion, the Brit awards combined staged spectacle, contentious interventions and high-profile wins, with harry styles’s opening slot and Chanel look among the most-discussed elements of the evening.
