Nicole Kidman attends the 2026 Met Gala celebrating 'Costume Art' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Monday.Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Met Gala guests from Beyoncé and Naomi Osaka to Emma Chamberlain did not play it safe this year for the Met Gala, delivering custom works of art in honour of the dress code “Fashion is art.”
Beyoncé left the cowboy hat at home and dazzled in a custom Olivier Rousteing sculptural skeleton dress with a cream and dust blue feathered train fitted with a diamond crown for “Queen Bey.” The Grammy winner and husband Jay-Z and daughter Blue Ivy, stopped to pose as a unit on the Metropolitan Museum of Art steps together.
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Osaka stunned in a edgy Robert Wun white sculptural fitted dress featuring exaggerated shoulders and adorned with red feathers and a matching headpiece. To complete her show-stopping look, Osaka’s wore two-toned red gloves. A similar look by Wun sits inside the Met’s Costume Institute exhibit, “Costume Art.”
On the carpet, Osaka opened her dress and removed her headpiece for a grand reveal underneath. She wowed in a sleek red beaded gown embellished with the human anatomy.
Chamberlain arrived in a breathtaking Mugler by Miguel Castro Freitas hand-painted dress. The star was dipped in a rainbow of colours from her décolletage down to the spiral train of her body-hugging dress with fringe falling down the cuffs of the long-sleeve gown.
Emma ChamberlainMike Coppola/Getty Images
With all the fanfare around the “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” Met Gala Co-chair Anna Wintour opted for a cool mint ensemble – not the trendy cerulean blue from the first film. Wintour’s look featured a feathered cape and a beaded dress by Matthieu Blazy for Chanel that she classically paired with her signature bob and oversized sunglasses.
Other co-chairs of the evening Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams chose more subdued glamorous looks. Williams wore a sparkling black off-the-shoulder gown with a dazzling Swarovski neckpiece in homage to a painting of herself done by Robert Pruitt for the National Portrait Gallery. Event sponsor Lauren Sánchez Bezos arrived in a form-fitting Schiaparelli gown, which she told Vogue was influenced by John Singer Sargent’s 1884 painting “Madame X.”
Artistic references
When guests were not wearing art, they were making references to it. Head of Editorial Content for US Vogue Chloe Malle wore an apricot orange Colleen Allen dress inspired by Sir Frederic Leighton’s “Flaming June” painting. Actor and author Lena Dunham collaborated with Valentino designer Alessandro Michele for her red feathered dress to depict his interpretation of “Judith Slaying Holofernes.” As a child, Dunham told Vogue, she would visit the Met museum on Sundays and admire the paintings in the renaissance section.
Chloe MalleANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
“One of my favourite painters from that era is Artemisia Gentileschi, who was one of the only women painting professionally in that moment,” she told Vogue. “So I sent some of the images to Alessandro, and because he’s a genius instead of dressing me like her, he said, ‘You are actually the blood spatter as ... Judith cuts the neck off a man.’”
Stars also celebrated the dress code with their accessories. Actor and fashion muse Gwendoline Christie playfully covered her face on the carpet with a mask of her own face while pop star Katy Perry opened and closed her fencing-like mask on the carpet to smile at the cameras.
Venus Williams was not the only guest to break the fourth wall with an artistic reference to herself. It was a trend of the night with gala host committee members Amy Sherald in a Thom Browne look inspired by her own work of art and pop star Sabrina Carpenter wearing a Dior dress designed with film strips from the 1954 movie “Sabrina.”
Fashion as canvas
Jessica KayllANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
Some guests brought out their artistic side as they transformed their dresses into works of art. TikTok followers watched along as Jessica Kayll, who designs colourful silk robes, finished painting her dress in the days leading up to the gala. Kayll painted her own take on the famous Monet water lily scene right on top her dress for the gala.
While her “Devil Wears Prada 2” castmates kept it classic in black, Anne Hathaway made a statement in her custom Michael Kors Grecian-inspired strapless dress, which was hand-painted with a dove of peace.
“She is the goddess of peace,” Kors told Vogue.
Performance art
Madonna makes any carpet her stage. A group of women circled around her in colourful dresses as they held onto sheer fabric wrapped around her pirate ship headpiece on the carpet.
MadonnaDANIEL COLE/Reuters
And Janelle Monáe knows how to stand out on a red carpet. The performer delivered a message with her sculptural art piece that featured cords overtaken by moss wrapped around her form with moving animatronic butterflies.
“Remember what made you human,” Monáe told the Associated Press. “Nature is talking to us.”
Dressed body
Rather than wear art, models showed off their toned bodies as part of “Costume Art” exhibit’s theme celebrating artistic representations of the body. Supermodels Gigi Hadid and Irina Shayk both wore revealing looks on the carpet.
Bad BunnyJamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Bad Bunny went full costume, carrying a cane and dressing up as an older version of himself with grey hair and special effects makeup to add years to his face. The artist joked with Vogue that it took 53 years to finish the look. And supermodel Heidi Klum, known for taking her Halloween costume to new heights, brought that same dedication to the Met Gala as she arrived as a draped statue.
Instead of opting for a body-hugging gown, Kim Kardashian wore a bright orange metallic body plate from the ’60s designed by Allen Jones.
The physical form was modelled throughout the night with body parts draped over gowns or overlaid on garments in printed form in a trompe l’oeil. Theatre producer and performer Jordan Roth had a 3D figure looming behind him as part of his velvet Robert Wun getup while other celebrities had carefully placed sculpted hands attached to their gowns.
For her first Met Gala, Chase Infiniti donned a colourful sequined Alexander McQueen gown with the female form embellished with sequins on the front and back of her dress.
Chase InfinitiBrendan McDermid/Reuters
In typical fashion, singer and fashion powerhouse Rihanna shut down the carpet as the final guest to arrive much earlier than in year’s past. Dressed in a metallic jewel encrusted cocoon-like dress, Rihanna emerged onto the carpet with her partner A$AP Rocky.
“I feel like a pearl out of an oyster,” Rihanna said to reporters on the carpet.