Harry Styles revived his Harryween tradition at Madison Square Garden on Friday 30 October, opening the first of two Halloween concerts dressed as Elvis Presley before changing into a recreation of his own 16-year-old self. According to NME and JustJared, Styles appeared in Elvis’s signature white jumpsuit, complete with a cape and gold sunglasses, for the first of his two Harryween shows, the penultimate night of his 30-night residency at the venue. The Elvis opening was fitting in more ways than one. His fiancee Zoe Kravitz was spotted in the crowd dressed as a devil in a red look with matching horns, alongside her longtime friend Riley Keough — who happens to be Elvis’s granddaughter, according to JustJared. Keough, 37, is the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough, making Elvis her maternal grandfather.
From the King to a 16-year-old auditionee
Later in the same show, Styles changed into an altogether different costume: the clothes he wore for his original audition on The X Factor in 2010. According to NME and the Glasgow Times, he wore a grey cardigan over a white T-shirt, a yellow scarf, brown khakis and an X Factor audition number pinned to his front, and performed Stevie Wonder’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ — the song he sang at 16 that helped launch his career, when he sang it for judges Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger and Louis Walsh. His backing band and dancers also embraced the Halloween theme, dressing as various versions of Styles from throughout his career, including looks inspired by his appearances at Coachella, the Grammys and the Met Gala, according to NME. The effect was a show that told Styles’s own story in costume: first as a rock-and-roll icon, then as the teenager who started it all, surrounded by versions of himself.
A tradition revived at the end of a residency
Harryween first saw Styles hold two special Halloween concerts at Madison Square Garden in 2021, according to NME, and the 2026 revival closed his mammoth 30-night residency at the venue, which began in August as part of his ongoing ‘Together, Together’ world tour. The New York run concluded on 31 October with a second Harryween show, before Styles headed to Australia for concerts in Melbourne and Sydney in November and December. For fans, the 30 October show worked because it balanced spectacle with self-parody. Dressing as Elvis is a big, confident swing; dressing as your own awkward 16-year-old self, and singing the audition song that started everything, is a humbler, funnier one. Styles did both in a single night, and in doing so reminded the Garden why Harryween has become a tradition: it is the one night a year when a pop star can be both the King and the kid who once dreamed of being him.
