On Monday evening, the 2026 Met Gala will be a high-fashion affair to remember. All eyes will be on the custom designs coming down the red carpet—but even more focus will be put on the bodies wearing them. This year’s event, after all, celebrates the Met’s new spring Costume Institute exhibition, “Costume Art,” spotlighting “the centrality of the dressed body.”

While we can expect all of the celebrity looks to cleverly explore the relationship between clothing and the human form underneath, there is quite simply no group that can better serve body (or the illusion of one) than drag queens. So, what better moment than now to look back on where it all began?

Over the years, drag queens—be it fashion queens, comedy queens, or even quirky queens—have all perfected the art of body-forward dressing. In their way, these drag queens are echoing certain themes expressed in this year’s Met exhibition, like a padding-filled pair of tights by Harry Pontefract of British label Ponte, the bodies refigured by corsets and bustles in a section on the abstracted body, or clothes designed to subvert the “normal” curves of the human form in a section on the reclaimed body.

Through their transformative padding techniques, in which they sport specialized foam or silicon inserts as an underlayer, drag queens have found masterful ways to build their signature silhouettes, leveraging padding to convey the type of womanly curves they want to present to the world, and, thus, the woman they want to be. “When I started to proportionize from my body, it unlocked an external response,” says Jimbo, a top Drag Race and All Stars alumni. “Your body is your visual fingerprint: When I’m padded and feeling myself, I’m taking up more space—and that feels good and sexy to me.”

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact origins of padding in the drag world, it can be traced back to the Shakespearean era, when both male and female actors would swap genders on stage. However, as the concept of drag as performance became more prominent in the early 1900s—first with the “pansy craze” of the 1920s, and then the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1960s—padding became a more popular component of the drag scene, where queens began using modified bodies to create a fantasy on-stage. “It’s all one big magic trick,” says Plane Jane, a queen known for her beautiful (and often sickening) padding. “It looks all flawless and stunning from the outside—but on the inside, it’s like a bunch of levers and pulleys and glue.”

Of course, pioneers like Divine, or RuPaul—the queen of drag—and her widely successful RuPaul’s Drag Race series have catapulted the art of drag into a whole new public stratosphere. With the rise of mainstream queens on our television screens, there are now even more resources that teach a whole new generation how to do drag—from the art of tucking to padding, all of which can now be learned on YouTube. “People have their own journey with padding,” says Plane Jane. “I love a hyper-feminine illusion when it comes to my drag: My drag is all about the body. I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as a female impersonator—but I definitely am an illusionist.”

With advancements in technology and the rise of the mainstream drag industry, padding today has become its own world and niche. There are now full-on artists who specialize in creating padded foam or silicone inserts for queens, such as Camille Yen, known as the body of Boston for her expert padding skills.

Many queens have also become experts at padding themselves, such as Bob the Drag Queen—one of the most prominent queens working today, revered for their beautiful padding shapes. “I make all of my own padding,” says Bob the Drag Queen. “I have no feminine curves, so I’m creating some out of thin air.” Bob prefers a more hourglass approach—a signature element of her glamorous drag. “A great proportion for me is that the waist should be one-third smaller than your hips and your breasts—33-22-33 is a great goal,” she says. “I don’t think that the world of drag has created a beauty standard [for bodies]. The world of drag just emulates it.”

Many queens have their padding techniques down to a science. Jimbo, for one—a queen known for her exaggerated blow-up breasts and three-dimensional hips—takes a more layered approach to her padding. She often cuts her foam inserts herself (with a turkey carving knife!), ensconcing herself in layers like a Russian doll. “I wear one layer to hold the foam in, then I wear Spanx to compress it, and then I wear three layers of hose to blend the seams,” Jimbo says. “Underneath that is my tucking panty, and my corset. I’m locked and loaded!”

Plane Jane takes a similar approach, preferring to use ultra-specific foams. “To an outside perspective, it seems like it’s just foam being stuffed in your tights,” says Plane Jane. “But there are different polymers, foams, and textures you can use to shape your body. My padding is a composite of two different foams—a firmer one on the inside, and a softer one on the outside. The firmer foam helps it maintain its shape and durability.”

Of course, with such distinct approaches to padding the body, there are many nuances in how queens interact with the fashions on top of them (a dynamic explored in the new Met exhibition—from pregnant bodies to disabled bodies). A lot of queens today work with custom designers as a result—partly to develop unique and original designs, but mostly out of necessity, so that they can find garments to fit the unique dimensions of their padded-out bodies. “A lot of our clothes are custom-made,” says Bob the Drag Queen. “By doing that, it’s obviously going to fit like a glove.”

Popular designers in the drag sphere include Chris Habana, Diego Montoya, Zaldy, and Marco Marco. And while true fashion queens such as Violet Chachki or Shea Couleé have donned runway pieces from Jean Paul Gaultier or Valentino, many work with drag-specific designers to suit their body types. “The high-fashion world tends to go more towards the coat-hanger kind of body,” says Jimbo. “My proportions are very extreme. [Non-custom clothes] don’t always work, because I’m not following human proportions.”

As a result of these added design challenges, there is a new movement happening in the drag world, in which queens are forgoing padding altogether. Prominent queens such as Naomi Smalls and Aquaria have chosen to deliver their glamorous looks without padded silhouettes. It’s an approach that allows them to interact with fashion more freely—a choice that even the most padded of queens understands. “I like to wear padding when I’m on stage, but I don’t wear padding every single time,” says Bob the Drag Queen. “I’m not into being uncomfortable just for the sake of being uncomfortable. But drag is not known for its comfort.”

Other queens, like Jimbo, see padding as a necessary part of drag; It’s a way for them to feel totally in character and like themselves whenever they’re performing. It’s worthwhile, even if it’s a nuisance to wear. “Hips, breastplates, corsets—those are all anti-dancing and anti-movement,” says Jimbo. “But I sacrifice some level of mobility and movement in order to appear the way I want. Beauty is pain.”

Above all, though, padding is more than just an aesthetic choice for many queens. Sure, it can enhance or make a look feel complete—but padding, more importantly, transforms how they feel on the inside. “I really like the power that comes from playing with proportions,” says Jimbo. “Gender is a uniform: We are given this thing to subscribe to, and fashion and self-expression are a way around that. It’s a way of circumventing those things that are put on us.”

The sentiment is important to celebrate more than ever—especially as the Trump administration continues to crack down on both the LGBTQ+ and drag community. Padding, then, can serve as a powerful form of resistance. “The world is kind of scary, but the art of drag makes me happy,” says Plane Jane. “A sense of community is what keeps joy alive, especially through times where it feels like there are voices trying to repress you. That’s what drag has always and will continue to be.”