The 2026 Met Gala Was All About Naked Dressing
Stars from Gigi Hadid to Kendall Jenner and Kate Moss put their own unique spins on naked dresses.
Reported by Vogue.
The Met steps have always been fashion's most theatrical stage, and the 2026 edition made one thing undeniable: the body itself is the garment. Under the theme "Costume Art" — an exhibition concept exploring diverse body types across the history of fashion and fine art — naked dressing didn't just show up on the carpet. It dominated it.
This wasn't a surprise exactly. According to Vogue, barely-there dressing has been a Met fixture for years: in 2024 alone, Elle Fanning arrived in a crystalline Balmain gown so pristine she looked rendered in glass, while Emily Ratajkowski pulled from the Versace archive for a transparent look encrusted with thousands of crystals. But 2026 felt different — less red carpet stunt, more deliberate statement. When the theme is literally about how art and fashion frame the human form, showing up in something sheer isn't provocative. It's on-brief.
Who Wore It Best
Gigi Hadid came in Miu Miu, Kendall Jenner wore GapStudio — a pairing that alone signals how far the conversation around naked dressing has traveled from couture exclusivity. Simone Ashley, Adwoa Aboah, Irina Shayk, Vittoria Ceretti, Kate Moss, Doja Cat, Kylie Jenner, and Tyla rounded out a roster that read less like a trend moment and more like a collective reckoning with what it means to dress a body — and what it means to let it speak for itself. Newer names like Devyn Garcia, Docheii, Alex Consani, and Odessa A'zion added the kind of range the theme called for, each bringing a different interpretation of exposure, transparency, and form.
What made this year's naked dressing resonate wasn't the skin — it was the intention. Sheer fabrications, lingerie-coded silhouettes, and near-nothing construction felt less like shock tactics and more like a coherent response to an exhibition asking who gets to define the ideal body in art and fashion. The carpet became an extension of the galleries upstairs: a living, breathing argument that the answer is everyone.
When the theme does half the work, the boldest move is trusting the clothes — or the absence of them — to do the rest.
Read the original at Vogue.
