Celebrities with Memorable Met Gala Style

Cher arrived at the 1974 gala, held for Diana Vreeland's Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design exhibition, on the arm of Bob Mackie in his sheer, feathered and beaded gown. It was a calculated piece of Hollywood glamour for a Hollywood theme, and the photographs still define the gala's early celebrity era.

For the 1996 gala celebrating fifty years of Christian Dior, Diana, Princess of Wales, wore a navy silk slip dress edged in black lace by John Galliano, newly appointed to the house and yet to show his first collection there. Lingerie as evening wear was still daring, and it became one of the most photographed gala looks of the decade.

Sarah Jessica Parker has taken the gala's themes more literally than most. For AngloMania in 2006 she arrived in Alexander McQueen tartan on McQueen's arm, and for Heavenly Bodies in 2018 she wore Dolce & Gabbana with a Philip Treacy nativity scene for a headpiece, proof that she treats the dress code as a brief.

Beyoncé's 2015 Givenchy gown by Riccardo Tisci was a sheer net body scattered with crystals and a long feathered train, worn with a matching headpiece. It remains one of the defining naked dresses of the gala, and her few appearances since have each been treated as major fashion events.

For China: Through the Looking Glass in 2015, Rihanna wore an enormous yellow fur-trimmed cape by the Chinese couturier Guo Pei that took two years to embroider and needed attendants to carry it up the steps. Three years later, for Heavenly Bodies, she arrived in a jewelled Maison Margiela mitre and minidress, cementing her reputation as the guest who takes the theme furthest.

Katy Perry treats the gala as costume theatre: huge feathered angel wings by Atelier Versace for Heavenly Bodies in 2018, then a working chandelier by Jeremy Scott for Moschino for Camp in 2019, followed by a hamburger outfit for the after-party. Her looks are designed to be the night's most shared images, and they usually are.

As a co-chair of the 2019 gala, Camp: Notes on Fashion, Lady Gaga turned her arrival into a sixteen-minute performance, shedding a vast pink Brandon Maxwell cape to reveal three more looks underneath, ending in sparkly underwear. It was the clearest reading of Susan Sontag's essay on camp that the steps have seen.

Zendaya and her long-time stylist Law Roach turned the 2019 Camp theme into a fairy tale, with a Tommy Hilfiger ballgown that lit up as Roach waved a wand, Cinderella style. In 2024 she wore two looks for The Garden of Time, a John Galliano for Maison Margiela gown and archive Givenchy, confirming her as one of the gala's most thoughtful dressers.

Billy Porter was carried into the 2019 gala on a litter by six shirtless men, dressed by The Blonds as an Egyptian sun god in a gold catsuit with twelve-foot wings. For a theme about camp, it was a perfect blend of seriousness and spectacle, and one of the defining images of that night.

Janelle Monáe's 2019 Christian Siriano look had a surreal, Picasso-like edge: a black-and-white gown with a huge mechanical eye on the bodice whose lashes blinked, topped by a tiered hat. It was one of the most playful art references of the Camp year, and typical of her love of sharp, graphic tailoring.

Jared Leto arrived at the 2019 gala in a red Gucci gown carrying a lifelike replica of his own head, a nod to the severed heads in Alessandro Michele's Gucci show. In 2023, for the Karl Lagerfeld tribute, he went further and came dressed as Choupette, Lagerfeld's cat, in a full furry costume.

Harry Styles co-chaired the 2019 gala in a black Gucci jumpsuit with a sheer ruffled blouse, heeled boots and a single pearl earring, styled by Harry Lambert. It was restrained by the night's standards but deliberately soft and romantic, and it did much to build his reputation for blurring menswear rules.

Cardi B's 2019 Thom Browne gown was a quilted oxblood creation with a train so wide it took several handlers to manage, trimmed with feathers and a cascade of pearls. It was designed as a grand, almost architectural statement, and it took over the steps in exactly the way the Camp theme invited.

Lupita Nyong'o has made her hair central to her gala looks, working with the hairstylist Vernon François. In 2018 a sculpted braided crown topped her beaded Atelier Versace gown for Heavenly Bodies, and in 2019 a rainbow-sequinned Versace dress came with an afro set with gold picks, celebrating Black hair as the centrepiece of a camp look.

Lil Nas X made his gala debut in 2021 with three Atelier Versace looks worn one over another: a regal gold cape, then gold armour, then a crystal-covered catsuit. For In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, the staged reveal was a playful riff on armour and self-presentation, and he returned in 2023 covered in pearls and silver body paint.

Billie Eilish co-chaired the 2021 gala in a vast peach tulle Oscar de la Renta ballgown, with platinum hair styled in Marilyn Monroe waves, a complete break from her baggy early image. She agreed to wear the house only if it stopped selling fur, and it did, giving the dress a consequence well beyond the evening.

As a co-host for Gilded Glamour in 2022, Blake Lively wore an Atelier Versace gown that began as rose-copper and, as attendants untied a bow on the steps, unfurled into verdigris blue, echoing the Statue of Liberty's oxidised copper. Turning a single dress into a piece of New York history was a clever reading of the gilded age theme.

Kim Kardashian's two most discussed gala looks went to opposite extremes. In 2021 she wore a Balenciaga outfit that covered her completely in black, face included, and in 2022 she wore Marilyn Monroe's original 1962 crystal-covered Happy Birthday, Mr. President dress, borrowed from Ripley's Believe It or Not!, a choice that started a debate among conservators about wearing historic garments.

For the 2023 tribute to Karl Lagerfeld, Doja Cat came as his beloved cat Choupette, in a silver Oscar de la Renta gown with prosthetic cat features and ears, then answered reporters only by meowing. It was one of the night's wittiest readings of the theme.

Tyla made her gala debut in 2024 in a Balmain gown by Olivier Rousteing covered in sand, with an hourglass for a bag, a pointed answer to the Garden of Time theme. The dress was so rigid she had to be carried up the steps, which only added to its reputation as the night's breakout look.

Diana Ross, a gala guest since the Vreeland years of the 1970s, returned in 2025 for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style in a white Ugo Mozie gown with a train long enough to fill the steps. Pairing a young Nigerian-born designer with a Motown legend, it was one of the night's most moving readings of the theme.