The Met Gala 2026 red carpet doubled as an art history final.
The Costume Institute’s 2026 exhibition, “Costume Art,” came with a dress code of “Fashion Is Art” — and plenty of attendees did their research, pulling references from the very museum they were walking into.
From Renaissance paintings to Pop Art sculptures and works hanging in the Met’s own permanent collection, Monday night’s carpet could have come with a gallery guide.
Here are the artworks behind the most creative looks of the night.
Heidi Klum, inspired by Raffaele Monti’s “Veiled Vestal“
The supermodel arrived looking like a museum piece come to life, channeling Italian sculptor Raffaele Monti’s 19th-century “Veiled Vestal” with prosthetics made from foam and latex, thanks to Mike Marino.
Klum told Vogue she found the reference while browsing the Met’s galleries: “I was like, ‘I want to become her!’”
Madonna, inspired by Leonora Carrington’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony. Fragment II”
The Queen of Pop arrived with a coven in a black Saint Laurent lace gown, pirate ship headpiece and sheer gray cape held aloft by seven blindfolded attendants.
The theatrical entrance drew from Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington’s 1945 oil on canvas, a dark, dreamlike scene of temptation and transformation.
Plus, Madonna even carried a French horn and wore a dark wig.
Kendall Jenner, inspired by ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’
The supermodel tapped Zac Posen to pay tribute to the second-century Greek sculpture displayed in the Louvre. Posen started by reshaping a white Gap T-shirt, then built the custom GapStudio gown from tea-dyed jersey, chiffon and organza until it captured the statue’s wind-caught movement.
Anok Yai, inspired by the “Black Madonna“
Model Anok Yai took her inspiration from the “Black Madonna,” the religious icon found in Catholic churches across Europe. Yai arrived in prosthetic hair and golden tears, telling Vogue she wanted to “look like a walking statue.”
“In the climate that we’re living in right now, we need hope,” she explained. “I feel like being the Black Madonna in a Trump world is going to send that message.”
Emma Chamberlain, inspired by Van Gogh and Munch
Vogue’s special correspondent wore a custom hand-painted Mugler gown that required more than 40 hours of painting — plus four days of drying time.
Artist Anna Deller-Yee applied the brushwork, drawing from the palettes of Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch.
Hunter Schafer, inspired by Gustav Klimt’s “Mäda Primavesi“
The “Euphoria” star stepped out of Klimt’s 1912 portrait of a young girl in a flower-strewn dress — a painting that hangs in the Met’s permanent collection.
Her custom Prada gown featured the same empire waist and rosette appliqués, but with strategic tears revealing blue floral silk beneath.
Kylie Jenner, inspired by “Venus de Milo”
The Kylie Cosmetics founder wore a custom Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry “falling ballgown” — a skin-toned bustier with a voluminous embroidered cream skirt appearing to slide off her body. The visual echo of the Venus de Milo’s draped marble was hard to miss.
Gracie Abrams, inspired by Gustav Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’
The “That’s So True” singer was gilded head to toe in a gold Chanel gown referencing Klimt’s shimmering 1907 portrait.
Colman Domingo, inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s “Pez Dispenser”
The actor wore a pleated chiffon jacket with a harlequin-inspired motif inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s crowned dinosaur motif from “Pez Dispenser” (1984). Domingo wrote on Instagram that the symbol represents “a duality of power and vulnerability” and “the artist’s self-styled ‘king’ status.”
Audrey Nuna, inspired by Jackson Pollock
The singer wore “The Pigment” from Robert Wun’s fall/winter 2025 couture collection, a black-and-white coatdress with more than 15,000 jet black Swarovski crystals forming a spatter print that brought to mind Pollock’s paint-flinging technique.
Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Claire Foy, inspired by John Singer Sargent’s “Madame X“
The honorary co-chair channeled one of the evening’s most-cited artworks: Sargent’s 1884 portrait of socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. Her custom midnight blue Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry gown featured a dangling pearl-and-crystal strap — a nod to the painting’s original fallen strap, which caused such a scandal at the Paris Salon that Sargent was forced to repaint it.
The “Crown” alum offered a second take on the Sargent portrait in a dramatic black gown — a custom Erdem x Barbour creation — with a loose chainlink strap by designer Erdem Moralıoğlu.
Jordan Roth, inspired by Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “Pygmalion and Galatea“
The Broadway producer wore Robert Wun for a look drawn from Gérôme’s depiction of the myth in which a sculptor’s creation comes alive under his touch. “That transformation — along with my curiosity whenever I look at classical sculpture of what it would be like to live inside it — were the inspirations,” Roth wrote on Instagram.
Naomi Osaka, inspired by Alexander Calder
The tennis star’s two-part Robert Wun look evoked the kinetic sculptures of Alexander Calder.
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