The Met Gala always asks for interpretation, but this year it practically begged for it. Inside the museum, the exhibition “Costume Art” is a thoughtful, almost academic meditation on the dressed body—how fashion shapes, frames, and occasionally distorts it across centuries. Outside, on the steps, the dress code “Fashion Is Art” was something else entirely: a prompt, a dare, a license to get a little literal. Some guests nodded politely to the theme. Others showed up ready to hang.
Because if the exhibition is about ideas, the red carpet was about references—big, bold, occasionally delightfully on-the-nose ones. Gracie Abrams shimmered straight out of Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, while Rachel Zegler delivered full historical drama via The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. Madonna didn’t just reference Leonora Carrington—she staged her, entourage and all—while Heidi Klum went full illusion in a wearable take on The Veiled Virgin. And then there was the unexpected trio:Lauren Sánchez three separate takes on Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X, courtesy of Claire Foy, Lauren Sánchez, and now Julianne Moore—proof that even one scandalous strap can have a long afterlife. These were the looks that didn’t just understand the assignment—they practically cited their sources.
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Hans Bellmer, La Poupee. Seconde Partie (The Doll. Part II), 1936, hand tinted photo.© 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Bridgeman Images
Cardi B in Marc Jacobs – Hans Bellmer sculptures
Cardi B arrived as a surrealist fever dream courtesy of Marc Jacobs, her body reworked into the uncanny proportions of Hans Bellmer. Bellmer, a 1930s provocateur, is best known for his disturbing, meticulously staged photographs of dolls—limbs rearranged, torsos doubled, bodies fragmented into something both hyper-feminine and deeply unsettling. Jacobs pulled directly from that visual language, exaggerating Cardi’s hips, shoulders, and silhouette into something sculptural and slightly off-kilter.
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Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, gold leaf, oil on canvas.Photo: Heritage Images / Getty Images