One Direction’s Week in Review: 1/30

The band is on a break, but the boys aren’t.

One Direction last performed together on a Sunday night, Dec. 13th, 2015, on the season finale of the British iteration of “The X Factor.” They sang a single from their fifth album, accepted accolades from Simon Cowell and others, and then vanished into the night to begin a hiatus with no end-date. Between them, in the months since they last took the stage, they have officially announced very little — four solo record deals, the birth of a child, the founding of a golf management company. But each week they are out in the world, doing things, going places. This is what we know.

On Wednesday, February 1, Harry Styles turned 23. That night, he celebrated at Rande Gerber’s Cafe Habana in Malibu with his friend and manager Jeff Azoff and others, including a cool girl in glasses and a man with a bun, neither of whom this reporter has ever seen before, which is remarkable, really, and a good reminder that, even if you spend Many Hours tracking the movements of a person, you really can’t know what is in their soul, really, or even the full roster of people they spend their time with. Three people he’s not spending his time with: the other members of One Direction, who were not at the party even though they were all in LA. Anyway, Styles wore a see-through Ed Lee blouse with flowers on the front and a tiger on that back that he previously wore on SNL, though this time he had a white t-shirt on underneath because winter, maybe, or newfound modesty, or both, or maybe a third reason that I haven’t thought of.

Niall Horan fell asleep on a sofa and hung out with Shawn Mendes. Also, I know I keep reporting that his hair is brown now, but somehow each week it gets more brown. It is very, very brown.

Liam Payne has been busy in the studio, or so he would like us believe. (I believe him.)

On Thursday, Louis Tomlinson went to Hotel Cafe, where he laughed, smoked, and was gruffly gripped by a man in a black jumper who whispered into his ear. I don’t know what that was all about, but I really, really wish I did. Tomlinson wore a camel jumper and light-washed jeans and looked great.

Notable Adjacent News

Photographer Ryan McGinley wished Harry Styles happy birthday on Instagram with a gift to us all: a snapshot from Styles’ Another Man photoshoot. Bless you, Ryan McGinley.