On Tuesday night, the British music world’s great and good came together for the first in-person celebration of music in over a year, the Brit Awards. The starry line-up of attendees included the likes of Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Olivia Rodrigo, but the night also marked the anointing of a bold new voice in music: the up-and-coming bedroom pop musician Griff. Not only did the emerging musician take home the Rising Star Award, previously won by the likes of Adele and Florence and the Machine, but she also delivered a show-stopping performance of her latest single “Black Hole.” Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, she wore a hand-made dress of her own design while doing so. “I was very nervous, as the last live show—in fact, the first live show I ever did—was with 200 people in the room, and then COVID happened, and so the next time I did a live show was at the O2 Arena, which is completely nuts,” says Griff. For her performance, she crafted a deconstructed ball gown from icy blue satin, the various panels attached with eyelets. While it brilliantly complemented Griff’s bold moves as she twirled around the stage, it also served as a perfect foil to the post-apocalyptic backdrop for the performance, which featured an enormous fabric sheet with a hole burned in the middle—a reference to the song’s title—and wooden decking for her backing musicians. “It was definitely overwhelming, but I think sometimes when it’s more intimate it can be even more nerve-wracking,” Griff adds. “It was nice to get lost in the arena a little bit.” It helped that Griff had two other, equally impactful looks to help her through the night. (Post-performance, she slipped into a delightfully flouncy tiered Simone Rocha gown featuring pouf sleeves, a harness detail, and encrusted with pearls.) But it was her first red carpet look—designed especially for the event by the London-based, Chinese-born designer and previous LVMH Prize nominee Susan Fang—that served as the most breathtaking fashion moment. With a shimmering, silvery-blue shadow across her forehead and a single tear painted on her cheek, the final touch was an enormous, ethereal headpiece constructed from geometric wires and sparkling glass spheres. May 18, 2021Captain Nemo
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