Met Gala: Costume Art Recap

This year's Met Gala delivered. Celebrities brought real creativity to the theme, and a handful of looks genuinely stood out. Here are my favorites.

Emma Chamberlain

(Image Credit: Red Carpet Fashion Awards)

Her dress was a literal canvas. For her sixth appearance at the event, Chamberlain wore a custom Mugler gown designed by creative director Miguel Castro Freitas and hand-painted by artist Anna Deller-Yee. The dress took 40 hours to paint using 30 base colors and four days to dry. The inspiration was personal. Chamberlain's father is a painter, and she grew up surrounded by art.

Madonna

(Image Credit: British Vogue)

This look was inspired by British-Mexican painter Leonora Carrington's The Temptation of St. Anthony: a fitting choice for the theme. She is seen wearing a custom Saint Laurent dress designed by Anthony Vaccarello. The focal point is a gossamer, vintage seacraft that is attached to the top of her head and surrounded by veils to give the impression that it is a ship caught in a storm.

Anok Yai

(Image Credit: Vogue)

Anok Yai's inspiration was the Black Madonna, a religious icon (The Virgin Mary) that is found all across Europe in Catholic Churches. A custom Balenciaga look designed by creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli. Her makeup really carried the whole look.

SZA

(Image Credit: E!News)

This dress... was all eBay!!! With support from Vogue and eBay, she created this vibrant yellow gown. The detail of this gown is what stands out, the pieces of saree, the cowrie shells, real flowers and all those crystals. This outfit had a great sustainability angle. In a room full of custom couture, SZA showed up in something assembled from thrifted materials and made it one of the most visually striking looks on the carpet.

Karan Johar

(Image Credit: Vogue India)

For his first Met Gala appearance, Indian filmmaker Karan Johar didn't just wear an outfit, he wore a piece of art history. His custom look was designed by Manish Malhotra. The look was inspired by Raja Ravi Varma, the 19th-century Indian painter whose work gave India some of its most enduring visual imagery.

Rihanna

Rihanna's corset had over 115,000 crystal beads, antique jewels, and recycled metal threads. She wore Margiela by Glenn Martens couture gown. The gown alone was extraordinary. But what completed the look was her hair. Yusef Willams created a 40 hand formed wire curls which is plated in dark bronze and then hand painted in gold to catch light on the carpet. It honestly looked like a crown on her.

Eileen Gu

(Image Credit: Vogue)

This gown features 15,000 handmade iridescent glass bubbles and beneath the dress there is a system of microprocessors, air pumps, bubble nozzles, and a portable power source. The outfit burst two to five actual bubbles every second as Gu walked the carpet. The concept goes beyond the visual. Van Herpen rooted the design in sciences specifically, the idea that the human body is 99.9% empty space. The dress was built to make you think about that.

Beyonce

(Image Credit: Vogue)

Queen B never disappoints. Especially this comeback look ate. This diamond-encrusted skeletal gown designed by Olivier Rousteing, the former head of Balmain. The look was architectural and bold with jewels layered over a dress structured to resemble a skeleton, paired with a matching headpiece.

Kylie Jenner

(Image Credit: Peoples)

Only Kylie Jenner could pull off a look like this. She wore a Schiaparelli dress that looked like it was literally slipping off her body The bleached eyebrows too?! Schiaparelli's DNA is rooted in surrealism, and this look leaned all the way into that legacy.

Sombr

(Image Credit: Instagram)

Sombr wore a custom Valentino look designed by Alessandro Michele. The centerpiece was a hand-embroidered tulle and chiffon cape with silver and gray tones, 500 hours of handwork. Beneath it, a lamé lace top with fabric twisted around the torso like ribbon and embellished trousers to match.