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Costume Art Eleganza Bedazzles New York City and the World through the Met Gala

Madonna. Photo credit: Michael Loccisano/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images

One of the world’s most anticipated evenings for fashion and art, the Met Gala, took place on Monday, 4 May 2026, bringing together high-profile celebrities and public figures in a haute couture charity benefitting the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

The first Monday of May each year is particularly a buzzy moment, especially for fashion, art, and pop culture enthusiasts. This is when New York City truly pulls out all its stops, becoming home to the Met Gala, a Vogue-commissioned glamorous ball that benefits the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it’s held annually since 1973. With a unique theme that corresponds to the museum’s seasonal exhibition, this year’s is Costume Art, with Fashion is Art as the dress code.

The Met Gala’s mystique, grandiosity, and opulence shapes a reputation that precedes itself, with people globally anticipating which of Hollywood’s rising stars, longtime mainstays, and high society members crack the elusive guest list. It has also become a stage for many luxury brands to showcase their creations, dressing the celebrities in custom gowns and suits. For Saint Laurent, this year’s roster includes Charli xcx, Connor Storrie, Rami Malek, ROSÉ, and Madonna, dressed by Belgian designer and the house’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello who plays it quite safe with black ensembles of diverse silhouettes and varying degrees of sheer fabrics.

The evening’s trend, however, was more on-the-nose with the theme. Many invitees opted for fashionable references to popular artworks, from paintings to sculptures. Rachel Zegler’s Prabal Gurung number is a riff on The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, Kylie Jenner in Schiaparelli is reminiscent of Venus de Milo, Hunter Schafer’s Prada ensemble is a nod to Mäda Primavesi, Heidi Klum in custom Mike Marino is inspired by The Veiled Virgin, and Amy Sherald’s Thom Browne dress pays homage to her own painting Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance). Others reference art in creative ways, such as LISA’s Robert Wun Swarovski-drenched sheer gown that pays homage to traditional Thai dance, or Anne Hathaway’s that featured imprints of the literary epic Odyssey.

This is the route Jonathan Anderson opts for at Dior. Among the celebrities walking for them are JISOO, who debuted the gala’s red carpet in a Claude Monet-inspired Impressionist floral gown. Sabrina Carpenter is another highlight, dolled up in a whimsical costume made out of film strips of the 1954 Audrey Hepburn flick Sabrina, paired with a bedazzling headpiece that pairs well with her Chopard jewellery pieces. Later in the evening, she mesmerised guests with her performance of select hits from her discography, as well as duets with legendary artist Stevie Nicks.

Anok Yai, Sabrina Carpenter, and Emma Chamberlain

The pint-sized popstar isn’t Chopard’s only muse. One of the evening’s best-dressed, Emma Chamberlain, also sported white gold- and diamond-clad bling from the same collection Sabrina pulled from, Haute Joaillerie, which only enhanced her impressive, hand-painted gown inspired by Van Gogh and Munsch. The grandest of all, however, is arguably Beyoncé, the evening’s co-chair, who completed her skeletal Olivier Rousteing number with selections from three different Chopard collections. Her look itself was a reference to Visitor, a painting by Louisiana-hailed Creole artist Caroline Durieux. She walked the red carpet alongside beau Jay-Z and daughter Blue Ivy Carter, before switching to a crystal-embellished, black-and-gold custom Robert Wun look.