Met Gala 2026: The most striking red carpet looks
By Oscar Holland, Jacqui Palumbo, Jennifer Arnow, CNN. Photographs by Lanna Apisukh
New York (CNN) — The tables are set, the cameras are waiting and some of today’s most stylish cultural figures are ascending the steps of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashion’s big night out, the Met Gala, is officially underway.
The annual glitzy fundraiser routinely attracts the year’s boldest, bravest and most dazzling looks and this evening’s dress code, “Fashion is Art,” will no doubt fling open the door to all manner of playful and dramatic interpretations from the 400 or so (mostly A-list) attendees.
The theme mirrors the content of an accompanying exhibition titled “Costume Art” at the Met’s Costume Institute, for which the gala is a major source of income. This year, the Met Gala has raised a record $42 million for the museum’s Costume Institute, up from last year’s record of $31 million, the museum announced during a press conference before the event.
As guests arrive to climb the front steps, they are set against a verdant backdrop reminiscent of Monet. The museum has created a garden-like setting with romantic hanging florals, barriers of green hedges, pots of lavender and a carpet resembling mossy bricks.
Organizers have suggested that guests might “express their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form.” That has been true as stars have looked to the canon of art history for inspiration. Emma Chamberlain nodded to Impressionist art early on with a gauzy, watercolor-like Mugler design, while Lena Dunham’s Valentino red interpreted the blood spatter of the iconic Baroque painting “Judith Beheading Holofernes” — one of the several standout red silhouettes that graced the Met’s stairs this evening. Co-chair Venus Williams referenced a painted image of herself in the National Portrait Gallery as the starting point for her Swarovski gown.
On the Vogue live stream, Williams pointed to all the personal symbolism hidden in the crystal design, including references to West Africa and Southern California.
“It just seemed right for this theme,” she explained to host La La Anthony.
Tonight’s co-chairs include Williams, Nicole Kidman and Beyoncé — who is returning to the event after a decade-long hiatus — along with Vogue’s Anna Wintour, who is credited with transforming the Met Gala into a global spectacle of entertainment and patronage.
Guests are bound by a strict “no-phone” policy, so these glimpses of guests’ sartorial interpretations may be the only views we get.
But drama could extend beyond the theatrical unveiling of gowns on the red carpet (or in this case, green carpet), too. This year has brought unusual controversy due to the event’s primary sponsors, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, with protests planned around New York City — and one protestor attempting to breach the perimeter of the event before being stopped by police. Sánchez Bezos seems to have wanted to send a message through her own look for the night — a Schiaparelli gown riffing off of the John Singer Sargent portrait of Madame X, a depiction of a socialite that caused its own scandalous reception.
“Daniel (Roseberry) wanted to pay homage to Madame X. It’s a painting that’s actually in the Met — so, one shoulder off,” she told Anthony, referring to her pearled straps.
Scroll down to see some of the Met Gala’s most striking looks. Stay with us, the gallery is being updated throughout the evening.
CNN’s Rachel Tashjian contributed to this report.
Stream CNN FlashDoc’s new documentary “Behind the Bob: Vogue’s Anna Wintour,” exploring Wintour’s decades-long reign, on the CNN app.
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