The 2026 Met Gala Challenges Attendees to “Costume Art”: Best Looks

The 2026 Met Gala, hosted by Vogue Magazine, was on Monday, May 4, and kept their tradition of inviting A-list celebrities who truly know how to go all out on a look. “Costume Art” was the theme for this year’s gala, and it is incredibly on-brand for what the charity gala consists of: ludicrously rich people walking a carpet in gowns that cost more than the average person’s rent. 

The gala had an entirely different feel this year, as Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, were the main donors, prompting many attendees to decline in protest. As for those who did attend the event, they came in style, unless they were Doja Cat arriving in a nude latex-looking dress, or Ben Stiller in quite literally the most basic suit and tie for the most outrageous fashion event of the year.

Honorable Mentions:

7. Ben Platt 

When it comes to men dressing up for the Met Gala, unfortunately, it’s often just a standard black suit and tie, but of course, Broadway star Ben Platt understood the theme to a tee. Platt arrived at the gala wearing Tanner Fletcher’s rendition of clothing based on Georges Seurat’s 1884 painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” This look is especially Platt’s background and on theme for himself, as “Sunday in the Park with George” is a musical based on Seurat’s painting. Fletcher posted on Instagram on May 6, 2026, that the look took approximately 120 hours to complete, including painting, beading, and embroidery. 

Gracie Abrams

While Gracie Abram’s Chanel dress is honestly to die for and embodies Gustav Klimt’s 1907 “Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” it seemed as though she didn’t even know what painting her dress was based on. In an interview with Reuters Showbiz that surfaced on TikTok, Abrams responded to the interviewer asking what her dress was supposed to be with, “A Klimt painting… all of his work, I just loved the way that everything was constructed.” If Abrams had actually known the dress that she was wearing instead of it seeming like she found out who Klimt even was 10 minutes before, then it would have been higher on the best-dressed list. 

Onto the top five looks of the night. 

5. Angela Bassett

In fifth place, Angela Bassett paid homage to Laura Wheeler Waring’s 1927 painting “Girl in Pink,” with draping rosy pink streaming down her gown, adorned with beaded flowers. The dress is simple, yet extremely tasteful and fitting for the theme, as she combines the artwork’s original dress with modern silhouettes. Her blush but bright eyeshadow complemented the look gracefully. 

4. Sabine Getty

In fourth place, Sabine Getty wore a latex nude-like gown from Ashi Studio’s Haute/Couture Spring 2026 collection. The look really emphasized the idea of our bodies being a living work of art. The dress was a hand-painted 18th-century-inspired corset, with fabric as “skin.” The look was incredibly unique for the night, not for its idea of sculpture of the body, but that it had an actual painted body, and didn’t look cheap or overdone (like Kim Kardashian’s orange sculpture). Sabine’s jewelry matched the hand on the dress, which was the cherry on top, and made that emphasis of her body “already being art.”

3. SZA

In third place, SZA arrived at the Met Gala in a glowing custom Bode dress that embodies sunshine. While there’s no specific artwork it symbolizes, the dress is inspired by Wiener Werkstätte and Viennese fashion plates. “We worked with a vintage dealer who sourced over a hundred yards of yellow fabrics for us in various materials—tulle, taffeta, silk faille, and beadwork on lace,” said Emily Adams Bode Aujla, the designer of the look. When SZA raised her arms, the dress made her look as if she were a butterfly flapping its wings, and had a myriad of other insect and butterfly motifs on her head as well. 

2. Hunter Schafer 

In third place, Hunter Schafer showed the Met Gala yet another Gustav Klimt painting rendition in the form of a dress:  “Mäda Primavesi” (1912-13). While the dress, made by Emilie Flöge, is not an exact look-alike to the painting, it has a modern spin on it with an extremely long train and differences in sculpture, as well as the number of rosettes on the bodice. The pleating and adorable hairpiece perfectly sweetened the dress and showcased this year’s theme. 

1. Emma Chamberlin

Emma Chamberlin has attended the Met Gala six times, and every year she comes back with bigger and better attention to detail and theme for her looks. This year, Chamberlain arrived in a custom Mugler, made by Anna Deller-Yee. The exquisite draping and canvas-like gown was created using 30 base colors, custom mixing, and 40 hours of painting time, and an excessive four days of air drying. It is widely known that this dress is one of the Met Gala’s best for 2026, if not the best. 

Sources: Billboard, People Magazine, Vogue Magazine