Top 25 Met Gala 2026 Looks: Theme, Dress Code and Outfit Decoding

Often termed “fashion’s biggest night out,” the Met Gala 2026 was co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams. Anna Wintour, Jeff Bezos, and Lauren Sanchez were the honorary chairs for the premium fundraiser, with Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz being the co-committee chairs. 

The Met witnessed stars like Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Connor Storie, Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Doechii, Alex Consani, Isha Ambani, and Hudson Williams, and more. The guests were seen wearing brands such as Maison Margiela, Olivier Rousteing, Chanel, Gucci, Balenciaga, and Gaurav Gupta, donning jewelry and art pieces. This article covers the top Met Gala 2026 looks.

Met Gala Theme and Dress Code

This year’s Met Gala exhibition was themed “Costume Art.” The idea revolves around the centrality of the dressed body. The Met Museum witnessed 400 outfits and explored fashion’s status as art. Therefore, the dress code was ‘Fashion is Art’ and aimed to depict the dressed body throughout art history. 

Guests were encouraged to interpret their relationship to fashion and use their bodies as a blank canvas. Divided into 3 categories: the Classical Body, the Overlooked Body, and the Anatomical Body, the outfits referred to Baroque, Impressionist, and Renaissance styles for their Met Gala outfits. Recurring body sub-types included the Pregnant Body, Aging Body, and Mortal Body.

1. Rihanna in Maison Margiela

Rihanna wore a custom sculptural Maison Margiela gown by Glen Martens, embellished with jewels and beads. She donned an Art Deco-style headpiece from the label’s 2025 Artisanal collection, and her silhouette was inspired by the medieval architecture of Flanders (Flemish paintings) and reflective of her Caribbean heritage.

2. Beyoncé in Olivier Rousteing

Her first appearance in a decade, Beyoncé wore a gown by French designer Olivier Rousteing, former head of Balmain. It consisted of an embellished sheer skeleton design made of crystals and a blue-and-white giant feathered cape, a crystal headpiece, and Chopard diamonds. 

The “naked’ gown symbolizes the beauty of mortality and honors Black and Creole heritage, specifically the artist, Caroline Durieux.

3. Doja Cat in Saint Laurent

Doja Cat donned a futuristic warrior princess look for the Met this year. Her draped nude gown was by Saint Laurent’s Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello, with long sleeves, a toga-inspired design that had gold accents around the shoulders and a thigh-high split. Made of silicone, it was inspired by ancient Greek sculptures displayed inside the museum. 

4. Nicole Kidman in Chanel

Nicole wore a red sequined long-sleeve dress with feather details around the hips and cuffs. The gown and jewelry were both by Chanel for her Met Gala outfits. Her second dress, featuring sheer lace panels, was also designed by Chanel’s Artistic Director Matthieu Blazy. According to her, the look symbolized passionate love and vitality for power and motherhood.

5. Tyla in Valentino

Tyla wore a custom Valentino outfit by Alessandro Michele. The beaded bodice had a satin low-rise bleu paon skirt with a deep slit and a silver-rhinestone waistline, and she finished it off with Valentino Garavani’s aquamarine pumps. 

Her top featured long sleeves and a deep-V neckline with fringes and sequins. The design was inspired by a peacock, as the singer is a fan of animal-inspired fashion.

6. Sabrina Carpenter in Dior

Inspired by Old Hollywood, paying homage to Audrey Hepburn’s 1954 film Sabrina, Sabrina Carpenter stepped out in a custom Dior slit tulle dress by Jonathan Anderson. It was accented by the full-body wrap of rhinestone film strips, including shots of Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden. Her hair was in a sculptural faux bob topped with a bejeweled accessory, giving her a royal look.

7. Hailey Bieber in Saint Laurent

Hailey Bieber wore Saint Laurent pieces that were inspired by Claude Lalanne, a longtime friend and collaborator of designer Yves Saint Laurent, and her Met Gala look was inspired by a look from Saint Laurent’s fall/winter 1969 haute couture collection, which they had designed together. The gold breastplate was molded to her body and accessorised with Belperron jewelry. 

8. Charli XCX in Saint Laurent

Designed by Anthony Vaccarello, Charli XCX wore a silky black Saint Laurent dress with a giant, sparkling flower stretching across her torso and some David Yurman jewelry. 

It was an iris made of resin and stitched into the dress, inspired by the brand’s most famous dress from its spring-summer 1988 collection. The original dress showcased Vincent Van Gogh’s admiration for irises, evident in his 1889 painting. 

9. Colman Domingo in Valentino

Domingo wore a Valentino look inspired by the T.rex in Basquiat’s painting Pez Dispenser. They utilized the color template for his checkered jacket and jewelry from Boucheron’s Serpent Boheme Gold and Onyx Collection. The motif accompanied a colorful two-piece ensemble and an Omega watch.

10. Connor Storie in Saint Laurent

His elegant outfit consisted of an extra-long Lavallière top finished in polka-dotted silk muslin and worn with high-rise trousers. Connor Storie wore a custom Saint Laurent with a sleek leather belt, Roman boots, and an Omega gold timepiece with some Tiffany & Co. jewelry. 

His stylist, James Yardley, drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman sculptures of Antinous, mostly depicted as Dionysus, and Connor embodied the classic features, curly hair, and presence of a statue.

11. A$AP Rocky in Chanel

A$AP Rocky opted for custom Chanel by Matthieu Blazy. It was a wool pink robe with black satin lapels and black piping details, embellished with black silk and feather camelia. He styled it with a simple shirt and trousers and elevated his look with a staggering array of custom jewelry produced under his own design label, PAVĒ NITEŌ, with a “Grim de la Grim” pendant.

12. Ayo Edebiri in Chanel

Ayo Edebiri’s look was inspired by an ethereal, Grecian-style aesthetic with whimsical, bird-like feather accents. She wore a white Chanel dress with a strapless bodice wrapped in gossamer fabric layered around her, with a thigh-high split, matching white heels, and some subtle diamond jewelry. The idea was to highlight quiet elegance that is modern and effortless.

13. Kim Kardashian in Allen Jones

Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala looks were inspired by British Pop Artist Allen Jones and his controversial 1975/1976 fetish-art poster and aesthetic for the film Maîtresse. She wore a metallic orange bodysuit and an open-front leather skirt. It was made by Patrick Whitaker and Keir Malem, with art collaborations with Christian Louboutin, Burberry, and Givenchy.

14. Kendall Jenner in GapStudio

Kendall Jenner wore a custom GapStudio dress designed by Zac Posen. Her outfit was inspired by the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Greek statue that was part of the Louvre collection. 

The dress was a floor-length, draped gown, constructed through asymmetric gathering and a single shoulder strap, and the fabric was pulled and knotted at the hip, creating movement and tension, showcasing realism. 

15. Venus Williams in Swarovski 

Venus Williams took inspiration from her 2022 double portrait by artist Robert Pruitt for the Smithsonian. Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2022 Portrait of a Nation Gala. 

The artwork features a younger version of her facing the current one in a black dress, surrounded by strands of her signature white beads. Over 4000 Swarovski zirconia crystals were used for this piece.

16. Emma Chamberlain in Mugler

Emma Chamberlain’s dress was created by Mugler’s Creative Director, Miguel Castro Freitas, and it was partially inspired by Thierry Mugler’s “La Chimère” dress from the fall 1997 couture collection. They also took inspiration for her wearable canvas from the Impressionist and Expressionist works, in reference to Vincent Van Gogh and Edward Munch. 

17. Kylie Jenner in Schiaparelli 

Kylie Jenner wore a deconstructed Schiaparelli gown that consisted of embroidered silk to reveal a sculptural nude illusion corset and a floor-length train. The “dropped ball gown” was made by Daniel Roseberry, and its corset toile was curated with a “sfumato effect,” which is a Renaissance painting technique. 

Her voluminous skirt was embellished with over 2000 sating stitching balls, 10000 natural baroque pearls, and 7000 painted pearlescent fish scales.

18. Alex Consani in Gucci

Alex Consani wore a theatrical sheer nude bustier paired with a skirt and train covered in black feathers. The Gucci gown by Demna was inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s 15th-century painting, “Primavera,” and brought out the symbolism of metamorphosis with its ethereal white silhouette transitioning from a darker feathered statement piece that depicted a “white swan to black swan” transformation. 

19. Karan Johar in Manish Malhotra

Karan Johar’s Met Gala looks were inspired by the Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma. His look included a black bandhgala and cape with translations of Hamsa Damayanti, Kadambari, Arjuna, and Subhadra on the fabric.

It featured hand-painted motifs such as lotuses, swans, and architectural pillars, along with rich zardozi embroidery. Artisans used acrylic and oil-based finishes to recreate the look of a traditional painting on fabric, completed in collaboration with designer Manish Malhotra. 

20. Gracie Abrams in Chanel

Inspired by the famous 1907 oil painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, Gracie Abrams wore a gold Chanel look. She had a custom gilded gown designed by Matthieu Blazy, secured with a jewel-embellished halter-neck strap and off-the-shoulder sleeves. The look was accessorized with yellow gold and diamond earrings and rings from the in-house. 

21. Bad Bunny in Zara

Bad Bunny used hyperrealistic prosthetics by makeup artist Mike Marino to exhibit the concept of “The Aging Body,” curated by Andrew Bolton. He wore a custom-made all-black tuxedo by Zara with an oversized bow in reference to Charles James’ 1947 “Bustle” and a Cartier watch to the Met Gala 2026. 

Sculpted with blemishes and wrinkles, pockmarks, and sag, Benito donned a silver wig, grey facial hair, and a cane to represent and honor his 85-year old look. 

22. SZA in Emily Adams Bode Aujla

Emily Adams Bode Aujla designed SZA’s corset dress, with about 100 yards of material sourced from eBay. She donned a bright yellow look with a tiered, embroidered skirt, a matching headpiece decorated with pincushion protea, moth orchids, and calla lilies. 

The upcycled dress was inspired by the 1910s Art Nouveau Movement and the Viennese design collective Wiener Werkstätte.

23. Doechii in Marc Jacobs

Doechii donned a Marc Jacobs burgundy dress with a cut-out bodice and a leg split for the Met Gala 2026. The two-piece was inspired by a traditional West African look and a towering headwrap. She accessorized her outfit with metallic anklets and chunky gold jewelry, representing traditional West African henna designs on her hands and feet. 

Her outfit was completed with the choice of skipping footwear entirely to highlight elements of vulnerability and humility.

24. Hudson Williams in Balenciaga

Hudson Williams wore a two-piece Balenciaga ensemble, a Matador-infused outfit paying homage to Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga. He paired his baby-blue ornate jacket with matching pants and a side train, resembling a capote de brega. The jacket was inspired by the 1947 Bolero jacket, and it was decorated with black embroidery and tassels, along with the pants. 

His jewelry was from Bulgari, and the thick, dramatic winged black eyeshadow, with shades of metallic red and blue, was a nod to the 2010 movie Black Swan.

25. Isha Ambani in Gaurav Gupta

Isha Ambani wore a custom couture Banarasi tissue silk saree by Gaurav Gupta as an ode to Indian textile heritage and ancient Indian art. Styled by Anaita Shroff Adajania, the saree had hand-woven pure gold threads, hand-painted border pichwai-inspired motifs, hand-embroidered Zardozi, Aari work, and relief embroidery, among other things, all done by master artisans of the Swadesh Collective. 

Her sculptural drape and blouse featured a blanket of diamonds and emeralds sourced from Nita Ambani’s private collection.

Conclusion

The Met Gala is a fundraising event for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is the most prestigious fashion event in the world, and the function is an invite-only event for high-profile celebrities. Initially, it represented a study collection to support research in the fine arts and serve as a resource for design professionals. 

Anna Wintour, the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue since 1995, has been chairing the gala, overseeing the invitation list and details of the gala.

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