The arrival of the 2026 BAFTA Awards can only mean that we’re truly in the thick of awards season now. Stars have flown across the pond and landed in London, just as London Fashion Week starts to wind down, for the last sprint of the circuit. Next weekend folks will fly back to Los Angeles for the Actor Awards, formerly the Screen Actors Guild Awards, on March 1, and have a weekend off before the Oscars on March 15—it’s a date deeply embedded in all of our minds here at VF, because with the Academy Awards comes our annual Vanity Fair Oscars Party.
The BAFTAs are fun in that their added layer of Britishness helps to shake up the crowd. Not only do you get some royal pizzazz, with Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, in attendance in coordinating ensemble—keep calm and carry on, in plum! You get some mixy categories with some undivided acting categories and both television and film celebrated on the same night.
Chase Infiniti, Archie Madekwe, and Miles Caton are among the nominees for the Rising Star award. Infiniti, who is a newly-minted Louis Vuitton ambassador, wore a burgundy dress with a beautifully blossoming hem by Nicolas Ghesquière, the label’s women’s designer. She’s been having a fantastic first-ever awards season; she’s also nominated tonight for best actress, and has now been inducted to our best dressed list for the first time. Infiniti has pulled off several great red carpet looks, but tonight she looks every bit the movie star.
Believe it or not, the BAFTAs have been a great night for suits. The Brits seem to have a clear point of view on how to spice up the boring red carpet staple: Be that Russell Tovey, Harry Lawtey, and Cat Burns putting the allure of a perfectly tailored suit on display, or Stormzy, Stellan Skarsgård, and Robert Aramayo proving that a well-fit tux makes all the difference. It was Madekwe’s deconstructed, haphazardly but beautifully put together Dior tux, however, that landed him on this list. Noah Jupe and Riz Ahmed wore almost-matching sculpted black suits, both shirtless—a happy coincidence, only because they both look terrific.
Jupe is not the only Hamnet star that, as the kids say, locked in: Jessie Buckley, and Paul Mescal are on their home turf, and they pulled all the stops with Buckley in a striking royal blue Chanel velvet dress, Mezcal in a deliciously relaxed Prada suit, and director Chloé Zhao in a gilded Gabriela Hearst frock.
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