Ahead of the 2026 Met Gala, Alexa Chung called two people: stylist Danielle Goldberg and personal trainer Matt Bevan. “Usually, I’m just sort of raw-dogging it alone, so it’s been really helpful,” she says of enlisting a powerhouse team with a clear vision. “It turns out everyone else was up to this!” The fourth member of Chung’s Met crew? Jonathan Anderson.

Danielle’s first word of advice, it turns out, had been “Dior,” which, serendipitously, was basically Chung’s dream scenario for the “Fashion Is Art” dress code. The cerebral and craft-focused Anderson happily cooked up a fluid chartreuse gown blooming with a single lily, in reference to Monet and his own Dior fall 2026 show in the Tuileries Garden. “It’s in my sartorial DNA to want to cover up and wear something structured and architectural, but it’s so lovely to wear something a bit more sensual,” enthuses Chung. “There’s something of the sprite about it.” For anyone watching, the low-backed confection looked more supermodel than supernatural.

Hence the gym membership. And the last-minute back exfoliator purchased from Aesop on the morning of our call, taken while Chung—wearing a signature navy jumper—is in Met prep mode in her East London home. “Honestly, if you’re going to wear a strappy, silky dress, then there’s not much room for error,” explains Chung, before noting that hydration and carb loading are both key on the day—along with a failsafe beauty routine. “Now is not the time for experimentation.”

Though she insists that this year’s Met Gala was all about feeling beautiful, and not “lumbering down the carpet in something that was hard to maintain,” Chung couldn’t say no to the couture headpieces inspired by the cyclamen Anderson was gifted by John Galliano when he took over at Dior. “I quite like a bit of headgear,” asserts Chung, recalling her 2023 look by Róisín Pierce, featuring a semi-bridal spray of crochet flowers that bobbed around as she hobnobbed with the great and good of the fashion industry. “It’s really good conversationally to make your point with headgear on, so I’m all up for adding width to the head.”

Her Met Gala philosophy is also typically Alexa: “Not to get pranged out about it all meaning more than it does,” she quips, when probed about her survival strategy for a night that’s like “watching TikTok come alive”. “It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been, it’s still really weird to see certain people standing next to others. It’s sort of like a school reunion, but not that…”

While an annual highlight is watching everyone fully absorb the exhibition—“it’s not mayhem, it’s quite grown-up actually”—Chung’s favorite Met Gala memory is her first. “I didn’t know that you had to walk up the giant staircase and shake the hand of everyone, or that there’d be people playing trumpets to announce dinner,” she remembers. “It really felt like a Cinderella ball, and the most beautiful, extravagant thing I’d ever seen.” Sixteen years on from her first Met moment, which saw her wear Philip Lim trousers for the “American Woman” theme, Chung’s mission to feel “really [herself] in this other alien environment” still holds true—stylist or not.

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