It's Been a Whirlwind Decade For Harry Styles, But It's Only the Beginning

Ah, let's rewind way back to 2010 when Harry Styles was just a kid from Holmes Chapel, England, who decided to audition for The X Factor. He auditioned for the show by singing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" and impressed the judges enough to advance through the competition. However, rather than making it as a solo artist, he was placed into a group with four strangers — Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, and Niall Horan — who would become One Direction.

The group closed out the year by finishing in third place on the UK TV show, and despite the popularity they'd gained, no one was quite sure how much success they'd find once the show went off the air. For all the fans knew, all they'd have of Harry would be the cute games production made them play or the video diaries they shot with the fans in mind.

Harry's early years as a celebrity are a stark difference from the Harry we see now. Just look at his outfits, for one. Young Harry loved preppy, loose-fitting clothes and always wore his heart on his sleeve. It's easy to see why he was so well-loved by fans from the start. Between his beaming smile and tender voice, he was made to be a star.

Our Harry turned 18 in 2012, and well, he grew up a little. He had his first very, very public romance with a fellow superstar in Taylor Swift. It was the year he and the rest of One Direction headlined their first tour in the US, in support of Up All Night. They played 25 shows in North America, all while recording their second album, Take Me Home, which was released at the tail end of the year.

This was actually the year that "What Makes You Beautiful" landed in the US, and this is when I can confidently say One Direction hit it big with US fans. Up until 2012, they were only really known in the UK, but they didn't take long to catch on in the States.

Actually, they caught on so quickly that the group was able to sell out a show at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2012, just a few short weeks after bringing their music to the States. One Direction released their first US album in March and tickets for MSG went on sale — and immediately sold out — in April. They played the show in December to a roaring crowd and Harry commemorated with an Instagram photo that he re-created when he came back for his own headlining show in 2018.

The group also made their SNL debut and won a slew of awards in 2012, including their first Brit Award for British single of the year for "What Makes You Beautiful" as well as three MTV VMAs.

The year 2013 brought another tour, another new album, a movie, another SNL appearance, and some new tattoos for Harry. The band toured from February through November in support of their 2012 album, Take Me Home, while working on their third album, Midnight Memories. (Having trouble keeping up? Imagine what it was like for Harry and the other boys.)

This was the year Harry also really settled into his tattoo habit, getting his famous butterfly on his stomach, among other things.

The group made a documentary-style musical film called One Direction: This Is Us with director Morgan Spurlock. The film captured behind-the-scenes glimpses of them coming together as a band and travelling the world for work. It also shows some of the pitfalls, like recording on the road and getting very little sleep.

One Direction released Midnight Memories, as usual, at the end of the year, and Harry cowrote four tracks on the album: "Story of My Life," "Happily," "Right Now," and "Something Great." But we really need to talk about the greatest thing that happened in 2013 in One Direction Land (and Harry Land). 1D Day. For an entire day, One Direction took over the internet and just brought joy into our lives. They sang, they played games, Harry tried boba and hated it. It was truly a gift and a sh*t show all in one.

Anyway, this was also the year I felt like I saw Harry get a little more bold with his fashion. He started more regularly wearing shirts unbuttoned down to there, paired with snazzy boots and large hats. He also set the preppy aesthetic aside and strayed more toward frat-boy chic sometimes and hipster trash at other times. His hair got a little less curly and instead grew into shaggy waves. Long story short, young Harry grew up and started to become a heartthrob.

Hello, long-haired Harry. If you ask me, 2014 is when Harry set himself on the path for solo stardom. His fashion choices got bolder, his voice on the newest album got more prominent, and he seemed primed for stardom.

If you're assuming the group went on another tour and released another album, you'd be correct. One Direction toured in stadiums for the first time and recorded and released their fourth album, Four, at the end of 2014. The stadium tour was massive, with 69 shows raking in nearly $300 million dollars. It was during this tour that the group filmed a concert video live in Milan as well.

On Four, Harry had another five co-writing credits to his name, including "Stockholm Syndrome," which he continued to play on tour all the way through last year even as a solo act.

A highlight for Harry in 2014 was openly supporting gay football player Michael Sam at a concert. This was when Harry started to really become vocal about the causes he cares about, one of them being equality. In the years since then, he's ramped up his efforts, doing everything from donating portions of ticket sales to charity to creating merchandise with proceeds going to charity.

After One Direction went on their indefinite hiatus, Harry Styles took 2016 to stay out of the spotlight. That's not to say he wasn't still keeping busy. He covered his first magazine since going solo — three different covers of Another Man — that featured the evolution of shedding his long locks.

He also got to work recording his first album, Harry Styles, which would be released the following year. Harry spent a lot of time recording the album in Jamaica, which we got to see in his Behind the Album video.

There was also one other huge project Harry worked on in 2016 — he very casually shot a movie. Not just any movie, but Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Dunkirk. So just in case anyone had assumed up to this point that Harry was just a good-looking kid from a boy band who could maybe sing, we're here to set the record straight that he's also good enough for Christopher Nolan to put him in a movie. And he crushed it.