Harry Styles Wears a Boa and Leather to Perform “Watermelon Sugar” at the 2021 Grammys

The concept of a semi-virtual ceremony has yet to be perfected, but in the case of the 2021 Grammys, things at least got off to a good start thanks to Harry Styles. The Fine Line musician opened the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards with a performance of “Watermelon Sugar” in a leather suit paired with a chartreuse faux fur boa. The look was, of course, all custom Gucci. For all of his accomplishments—as a former boy band member, as an actor soon to appear in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, and as a champion of gender-bending style—this year marks Styles’s first performance at the Grammys.

The performance was immediately followed up by Billie Eilish, after she got over the shock of seeing Styles without a shirt on underneath his leather suit getup.

This year also marks the first-ever Grammy nomination for the musician (fans were disappointed when his 2017 self-titled solo debut received zero nominations). His nominations this year are for Best Pop Solo Performance (“Watermelon Sugar”), Best Pop Vocal Album (Fine Line), and Best Music Video (“Adore You”).

It’s a first-ever Grammy nomination for a former One Directioner, too. The band never received a single Grammy nomination while they were together, and Styles’s former bandmate Zayn Malik, who was the first One Direction singer to go solo, received no nominations for his debut album Mind of Mine in 2016, and is quite upset about receiving none for his 2021 album, Nobody Is Listening, despite the fact that it the album was not eligible.