The Met Gala always asks for interpretation, but this year it practically begged for it. Inside the museum, the exhibition “Costume Art” is a thoughtful, almost academic meditation on the dressed body—how fashion shapes, frames, and occasionally distorts it across centuries. Outside, on the steps, the dress code “Fashion Is Art” was something else entirely: a prompt, a dare, a license to get a little literal. Some guests nodded politely to the theme. Others showed up ready to hang.

Because if the exhibition is about ideas, the red carpet was about references—big, bold, occasionally delightfully on-the-nose ones. Gracie Abrams shimmered straight out of Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, while Rachel Zegler delivered full historical drama via The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. Madonna didn’t just reference Leonora Carrington—she staged her, entourage and all—while Heidi Klum went full illusion in a wearable take on The Veiled Virgin. And then there was the unexpected trio:Lauren Sánchez three separate takes on Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X, courtesy of Claire Foy, Lauren Sánchez, and now Julianne Moore—proof that even one scandalous strap can have a long afterlife. These were the looks that didn’t just understand the assignment—they practically cited their sources.

Cardi B in Marc Jacobs - Hans Bellmer sculptures

Cardi B arrived as a surrealist fever dream courtesy of Marc Jacobs, her body reworked into the uncanny proportions of Hans Bellmer. Bellmer, a 1930s provocateur, is best known for his disturbing, meticulously staged photographs of dolls—limbs rearranged, torsos doubled, bodies fragmented into something both hyper-feminine and deeply unsettling. Jacobs pulled directly from that visual language, exaggerating Cardi’s hips, shoulders, and silhouette into something sculptural and slightly off-kilter.

Gracie Abrams in Chanel - Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907)

Gracie Abrams leaned all the way into Klimt—Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, better known as the “Woman in Gold,” one of the most famous—and most contested—portraits of the 20th century. Her custom Chanel gown echoed the painting’s signature gold-leaf surface, built from dense, mosaic-like embroidery that read almost armor-like up close.

Rachel Zegler in Prabal Gurung in Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833)

Rachel Zegler went straight to high drama in Prabal Gurung—one of several guests the designer dressed in art-historical references that night—channeling The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. The painting captures the final moments before the teenage queen’s execution, the blindfold symbolizing both her innocence and her complete vulnerability—she quite literally cannot see what’s coming. Zegler translated that into a stark, off-the-shoulder white gown, letting the blindfold do the emotional heavy lifting.

Claire Foy in Erdem - John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Madame X (1884)

Claire Foy’s Erdem look riffed on Portrait of Madame X—the 1884 portrait that caused a scandal thanks to a (then) shockingly suggestive slipped strap. Sargent famously repainted it, restoring the strap to the shoulder, but the tension never quite went away. Foy leaned into that push and pull: a slinky black satin gown, offset with a crystal-embroidered Barbour jacket that made the whole thing feel slightly undone.

Lauren Sánchez in Schiaparelli - John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Madame X (1884)

Lauren Sánchez, meanwhile, went straight for the original controversy—also channeling Portrait of Madame X, but keeping the strap off. Her custom Schiaparelli gown leaned into the version that first shocked Paris, when that small, slipping detail caused an outsized reaction. It’s a clever read of the painting: not just the image, but the scandal around it—and how arbitrary it now feels.

Julianne Moore - John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Madame X (1884)

Julianne Moore offered the most subtle take on Portrait of Madame X—but no less intentional. In custom Bottega Veneta, she let the shoulder strap fall just slightly, a quiet nod to the detail that caused such a stir in 1884. Where others leaned into the drama, Moore kept it controlled, almost demure—the tension living in that small gesture rather than the whole silhouette. It’s exactly what makes the original painting so enduring: not what’s shown, but what’s suggested.

Amy Sherald in Thom Browne - Amy Sherald, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) (2013)

Amy Sherald took the assignment at face value—and then flipped it. Wearing a custom Thom Browne look based on her own painting, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance), she arrived as both artist and artwork. The polka dots, the crisp graphic lines, the unmistakable palette—it all tracked back to her visual language, instantly recognizable if you know her work. It’s a neat inversion of the night’s premise: instead of referencing art, she simply showed up as it.

Hunter Schafer in Prada - Gustav Klimt, Mäda Primavesi (1912)

Hunter Schafer’s Prada look pulled from Mäda Primavesi, a 1912 portrait of a Viennese child that feels more curious than decorative. Unlike Klimt’s gilded society portraits, this one is airy and a little offbeat—Mäda set against a loose scatter of pattern, wide-eyed and slightly untethered. Schafer picked up on that mood rather than any literal detail: soft florals, a sense of lightness, and just a hint of whimsy.

Kim Kardashian in Allen Jones - Allen Jones, Body Armour (2013)

Kim Kardashian’s look traced directly to Allen Jones’s Body Armour (2013)—his sculptural series modeled on Kate Moss, where the female form is rendered as a sleek, high-gloss shell. The piece sits somewhere between clothing and sculpture, turning the body into a polished surface rather than something soft or natural. Kardashian’s breastplate picked up on that same idea, exaggerating the torso into something almost industrial in its perfection. It’s less about dressing the body than recasting it—armor, object, artwork all at once.

Naomi Watts in Dior - Dutch Still Lifes

Naomi Watts’s custom Dior gown, designed by Jonathan Anderson, traced back to the house’s 1951 “Tableau Final” couture look—originally rendered in a light palette with soft pink florals. Here, that idea was flipped: the same sculptural blooms, but set against a deep black ground, the colors sharpened into something more saturated and deliberate. The shift gave it a distinctly Dutch still life mood—less garden party, more painting.

Luke Evans in Palomo Spain - Tom of Finland drawings

Currently on Broadway in The Rocky Horror Show, Luke Evans brought a bit of that theatrical confidence to the carpet, stepping into the world of Tom of Finland in a custom Palomo Spain leather daddy look. Tom of Finland—born Touko Laaksonen—became famous for his drawings of hyper-masculine, uniformed men, rendered in leather, caps, and impossibly polished proportions that blurred authority with fantasy. Evans’s version picked up on that visual language: oxblood shine, sharp tailoring, and a silhouette that felt deliberately constructed.

Alexa Chung in Dior - Claude Monet, Water Lilies series (c. 1897–1926)

Alexa Chung’s custom Dior gown, designed by Jonathan Anderson, took its cue from Water Lilies—but in a distilled, almost single-note way. Rather than a full impressionist wash, the dress centered on one blooming lily against a fluid chartreuse ground, pulling the idea of Monet’s garden into something more graphic and controlled. There was still that sense of softness and atmosphere, but sharpened just enough to read cleanly on the carpet. Less pond, more petal.

Lisa Airan in Christopher Kane - Henri Matisse, The Dance (1910)

Lisa Airan pulled from Christopher Kane’s Spring 2015 collection, which riffed on The Dance by Henri Matisse—those simplified, looping figures in saturated color, all movement and rhythm. The dress picked up that same graphic energy, with bold shapes placed directly across the body in a way that felt both playful and controlled. It’s a reference that reads instantly: color, form, and the body in motion.

Madonna in Saint Laurent - Leonora Carrington, The Temptation of St. Anthony. Fragment II (c. 1945)

Madonna went full dark enchantress in Saint Laurent, drawing from Leonora Carrington—the 20th-century painter and writer whose work, particularly in the 1940s, conjured dreamlike worlds filled with witches, hybrids, and ritual-like scenes. Carrington’s paintings aren’t about a single focal figure so much as an entire cast of characters, and Madonna understood that: the sheer violet cape, carried by a small procession of women, turned the whole group into part of the tableau. It didn’t feel like one person referencing art—it felt like stepping into it.

Kendall Jenner in Zac Posen (GapStudio) — Winged Victory of Samothrace (c. 190 BCE)

Kendall Jenner quite literally “earned her wings,” channeling Winged Victory of Samothrace—the second-century BCE marble that greets you at the top of the staircase at the Louvre. Zac Posen translated that famously windswept drapery into a liquid, almost wet-looking jersey that clung and moved in all the right places. The original sculpture is all about motion frozen in stone; this felt like it had just come back to life. Ancient Greece, but make it slinky.

Yu Chi Lyra Kuo in Jean Paul Gaultier - Winged Victory of Samothrace (c. 190 BCE)

Yu Chi Lyra Kuo doubled down on drama in Jean Paul Gaultier, also channeling Winged Victory of Samothrace—the second-century BCE marble that greets visitors at the top of the grand staircase at the Louvre. Where others kept it light, this leaned into the full sweep of it: pleats, volume, fabric that looked like it had been caught mid-flight. The original sculpture is all about motion carved into stone; here, it felt like that motion had been set loose. Same reference, different mood.

Ben Platt in Tanner Fletcher - Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886)

Ben Platt, the Tony-winning actor and singer, leaned into a painterly approach in a custom hand-painted and embroidered Tanner Fletcher suit. The look nodded to A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) by Georges Seurat, with scattered, almost pointillist detailing across the fabric. From a distance it read polished and cohesive; up close, the surface broke into texture and tiny marks.

Mile Chamley-Watson in KidSuper — Cubism

Mile Chamley-Watson took a more literal approach to Cubism—custom suit, helmet, and even a foil by KidSuper, all built around the fractured, multi-angle logic of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism is about breaking a figure apart and putting it back together at once, and the look leaned into that with sharp paneling and a slightly disjointed feel. Add the fencing gear into the mix, and it became part sport, part sculpture.

Heidi Klum in Mike Marino - Giovanni Strazza, The Veiled Virgin (c. 1850s)

Heidi Klum took things very literally—again—in a custom Mike Marino look inspired by The Veiled Virgin. The original 19th-century marble is famous for its impossibly sheer veil carved out of stone, the kind of technical flex that makes you do a double take. Klum’s version leaned right into that illusion, wrapping her face and body in layers that looked almost unreal. It was part Renaissance sculpture, part Halloween (in the best Heidi way). No one commits to a theme quite like she does—and honestly, you have to respect it.

Audrey Nuna in Robert Wun - Jackson Pollock, Number 1A, 1948 (1948)

Audrey Nuna’s Robert Wun coat dress looked like it had been through something—splattered with 15,000 black crystals arranged like stains that refuse to come out. The reference reads Jackson Pollock, specifically his drip-period canvases from the late 1940s, where splatter becomes composition.

Rosé in Saint Laurent - Georges Braque’s The Birds (1961)

Rosé kept things sleek, but the reference ran deep. Working with Saint Laurent, she tapped into the house’s bird motif—one that traces back to Georges Braque’s The Birds, famously painted on the ceiling of the Louvre, and reinterpreted by Yves Saint Laurent across multiple collections. Rather than turning it into a full-blown print, the nod came through in a single, precisely placed detail, letting the symbolism do the work. It’s a more insider read on “Fashion Is Art”: not a painting reproduced, but a motif passed down, reworked, and worn.

Alexi Ashe in Celine - Yves Klein’s Anthropometries series

Alexi Ashe made a strong case for “Fashion Is Art” quite literally, wearing a Celine Spring 2017 dress featuring body prints inspired by Yves Klein. Klein is best known for his Anthropometries—performances from the 1960s where he used paint-covered female bodies as living brushes, pressing them onto canvas to create those unmistakable silhouettes in his signature International Klein Blue. Ashe’s dress translated that idea directly, the imprint of the body becoming the garment itself. It’s one of the most literal interpretations of the night—and one of the smartest.

Angela Bassett in Prabal Gurung - Laura Wheeler Waring, Girl in Pink Dress (1927)

Angela Bassett in Prabal Gurung did something quietly confident: she looked like a painting. Specifically, Girl in Pink Dress by Laura Wheeler Waring, whose portraits of Black women in the Harlem Renaissance are all about poise without performance.

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