2026 Met Gala attendees who made the strongest statements did more than simply nod at the “Fashion is Art” theme, they treated each look as their very own respective canvases. Rather than relying on fame alone to garner attention, the best-dressed guests approached the first Monday of May with meticulous intention. With that being said, here are this year’s top five best-dressed attendees from the carpet
This year’s best dressed was, without a doubt, Emma Chamberlain, who figuratively took the abstraction of costume art to heart. Chamberlain wore a custom Mugler gown designed by creative director Miguel Castro Freitas. The sheer, high-neck silhouette of the gown was painted using traditional fine arts materials by artist Anna Deller-Yee. Deller-Yee employed traditional fine arts techniques to pay homage to those used by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch, and this aspect of the process took over 40 hours of painting plus multiple days of drying in order to produce the hyper-realistic brush strokes. In essence, while the gown aesthetically represented art, it was produced employing artistic methods to generate the painted canvas effect.
A close runner up was SZA, who also referred to both texture and craftsmanship through her custom Bode gown by Emily Adams Bode Aujioa. SZA’s look was constructed out of more than 100 yards of recycled, vintage fabric purchased on eBay. The design referenced the Wiener Werkstätte, a pre-World War I Austrian design movement that focused on craftsmanship and organic forms. The striking gown had corset-styled structured undergarments layered upon layers of textiles including detailed butterfly and flower ornamentation, allowing the viewer to seek the garments movement and depth.
Lisa from Blackpink ranked third of the evening, but first when it comes to the largest amount of sculptural aspects. Lisa’s custom Robert Wun gown was a semi-sheer white gown that held three-dimensional, digitally scanned versions of her arms that were positioned to hold a cascading veil above her head. Lisa’s gown referenced traditional Thai dance movements and therefore emphasized control of movement and shape. The look felt somewhat performance-based; less like a gown and more like an installation composed of individual components that contributed to the overall aesthetic.
Next on the list was Paloma Elsesser, whose interpretation of “Fashion is Art” was one of the most multilayered. Elsesser wore a custom design from Francisco Risso’s Bureau of Imagination. The custom gown was created using vintage garments that were combined into a sculptural, collage like form. Therefore, her gown demonstrated transformation because she used old things to create something entirely new. The contrast between the complexity of her dress and the lack of adornment in her makeup look only added to the clarity of her concept.
Naomi Osaka was last but certainly not least with regards to making a statement with Robert Wun. Her ivory colored coat-gown featuring red feathers visually depicted transformation and controller chaos. The large silhouette of the
coat and precise construction generated an air of tension around the look, as if the feathers might float upward in midair. Ultimately, the look felt surreal and prompted viewers to ask themselves if fashion can be considered anything more than wearable, but rather something conceptual, and how those two concepts can coexist.
What tied all of these designs together was not only how they looked but how they were constructed. Each designer created their own vision based on a specific viewpoint; from the material chosen for the design, to the construction, and eventually the styling. But in the end, it was their intense focus that set them all apart.
