While it’s easy to think that men’s grooming is low-maintenance, there is an art to it—especially for the red carpet. And for this year’s Met Gala, everyone is upping the anté. Case in point: Joe Alwyn’s Met Gala 2026 look, which can be described as a whimsical and romantic Roman sculpture.

Created by celebrity makeup artist Holly Silius, the look is the brainchild of Silius’s collaboration with Alwyn’s Rose Forde. While this marks Silius’s first time working with Alywn, she and Forde have worked together for 15 years, making the entire process a seamless one. “Rose always has incredible mood boards and ideas,” Silius tells Vogue. “We work really well together. I kind of understand the way she describes [things] and how she wants the look to come together because it’s very character-driven.”

Using the reference of Roman sculptures to guide the grooming and makeup, she calls Alwyn’s look androgynous with hints of femininity, mimicking the sculptural layers of his Valentino suit. Both Silius and Forde wanted porcelain skin with a cloud-makeup twist. “You’re going to look at Joe and do a double-take because we want him to look really porcelain,” says Silius.

The first step to the look is keeping Alwyn’s skin hydrated and clean-shaven. Silius layers on the Valentino Beauty products like the Illuminating Primer for the base before infusing gloss and color to get that romantic cloud look. Then, she mixes the Plumper Glosses, and more of the Illuminating Primer on the lip, cheekbones, brow bone, the temple areas, and eyes for added shine. “It’s really going to catch the light,” she explains.

Speaking of the eye area, that is the focal point for the entire beauty look. She mixes gloss, Colorgraph Waterproof Gel Eyeliner Pencil, a Lipstick, and blush to get that red brick color to connect the cheeks and the eyes. “So he looks more like a Roman sculpture,” she says. Add in some Bronzer to sculpt the jawline and the Eye2Cheek Blush in Roman Sky to Alwyn’s hairline to emphasize his newly styled curly Roman-esque hair. To finish out the look, she used the Brow Trio Eyebrow Liner to perfect the stubble.

But this is the real key to balancing out the whimsical nature of all that cloud makeup: never covering the undereye area. She uses only minimal concealer to hide any red spots, but leaves the undereyes completely untouched to keep the “masculinity” in Alwyn’s face. “It makes them look hot,” she says. “I’ll do maybe a little contour under the jawline. Just see, but in a photo, it makes them look like a bit more sexy.”

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