Hilary Duff Is Glowing in a Silver Chainmail Dress at the American Music Awards
This star is shining so bright
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
The 2026 American Music Awards leaned hard into nostalgia — Black Eyed Peas, New Kids on the Block, a reunited Pussycat Dolls — so it was only right that Hilary Duff showed up dressed like a Y2K fever dream made flesh. According to Harper's Bazaar, the former Lizzie McGuire star arrived in a custom chainmail maxi dress from Rabanne, and it was exactly the kind of red-carpet moment that makes you remember why this look dominated the early aughts in the first place.
The Chainmail Comeback Is Very Much Real
Chainmail was never really gone — it was just waiting for the right cultural moment to reassert itself. Paris Hilton and Kate Moss made it their signature two decades ago, and in the past year alone, Sydney Sweeney and Teyana Taylor have helped haul it back into serious red-carpet rotation. Duff's Rabanne piece — a floor-length, strappy silhouette with thick ribbed shoulder straps, a plunging neckline, and a high empire waist — felt vintage and forward simultaneously. The empire waist especially did a lot of heavy lifting, giving the whole look a softness that kept it from reading as pure armor.
She completed the outfit with matching silver stiletto sandals from Giuseppe Zanotti, tiered diamond-drop earrings, a few diamond rings, and nothing else. No overloaded accessory moment, no competing elements — just clean, deliberate minimalism that let the dress be the entire conversation. Her hair, parted down the middle in loose, subtly wavy strands, added to the effortless tone without veering into underdressed territory.
The appearance wasn't just a style statement. Duff was at the AMAs to present the award for New Artist of the Year, which went to global girl group Katseye, beating out nominees including Alex Warren, Ella Langley, and Leon Thomas. The moment also served as something of a cultural marker for Duff herself: in February, she released Luck... or Something, her sixth studio album and her first in over a decade — proof that the nostalgia on display at the AMAs wasn't only sartorial.
When the dress, the moment, and the career resurgence all align this cleanly, it stops being a coincidence and starts being a statement.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
