In the 11 years they’ve been in the public eye, Little Mix have topped the charts, dominated the headlines and become style icons in their own right.
But it wasn’t always that way.
You see, they’ve come so far in the past decade it’s easy to forget that the hit girl group started life as four girls who auditioned for The X Factor as soloists, only to be put together as a four-piece group by the judges at the eleventh hour.
And as these old photos show, they were still a long way off establishing themselves as the group we know and love today in that first year.
The group announced they would be going on hiatus after the conclusion of their Confetti tour, which came to an end on 14 May.
As we celebrate this chapter of Little Mix closing, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and remember the girls as they were – clashing prints, patterned braces, questionable dye jobs and all...
Like One Direction before them, Little Mix were formed at Bootcamp, after originally auditioning as solo artists. It was Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland who first saw the potential in the four-piece as a group.
A month later, the newly-formed Rhythmix (as they were then known) were off to Greece, where they performed for the first time in front of the very 2011 crowd of Tulisa and Jessie J.
In those days, X Factor was synonymous with its makeovers. After making it through to the live shows, here’s what X Factor’s team of stylists did to Jade, Jesy, Leigh-Anne and Perrie...
As live shows got underway, the newly-formed band became known for their wardrobe, which included lots of bright colours, bold prints and shiny materials.
Seriously, they loved a print.
It was this eerie Halloween week performance that cemented the girls’ place as contenders in what became a stiff competition...
We’re giving you fair warning, do not look directly at these skirts...
Or, frankly, these skirts (though that has less to do with their luminous properties)...
As the renamed Little Mix’s popularity grew, they began being papped on their way to X Factor rehearsals.
Is this photo making anyone else want to buy some Dove soap? Just us?
Eventually, Little Mix made it all the way to the X Factor final where they went up against Marcus Collins.
And we all know how that turned out by now...
The morning after their win, Little Mix made an appearance on Daybreak.
Here they are posing with the oft-forgotten fifth member of Little Mix: Kate Garraway...
Fresh from their X Factor victory, Little Mix opened the show at the NTAs in January 2012.
And, a month later, made their Brits debut. Later in their career, Little Mix would eventually go on to deliver a string of iconic Brits performances and – almost a decade after forming – became the first girl band in history to scoop Best British Group.
With superstardom within reach, the band made a string of public appearances in early 2012 in the lead-up to their debut album’s release.
There is a lot going on here...
On the band’s first birthday, they performed their debut single Wings at G-A-Y, and Jade was over the moon that the group got some balloons.
And a year after that first performance in Greece, they topped the charts with their debut single Wings (like the band themselves, we’re just pretending that Cannonball doesn’t exist).
