The 2026 Mess Gala!!!!!
It's time.
Hi!
It has been a deeply frenetic week over here at Mess HQ. No surprise there, such is the Met Gala. Even when you work for a publication that is not particularly gala content-heavy, I think there’s just a certain manic energy in the air here in New York City that permeates everything, even the chillest chillers amongst us (me).
So anyway, I’ve felt like I’m a headless chicken running around all week. In other words, extremely on trend. But I’m glad to finally have a moment to settle down here with you all and put a handful of my MANY Met Gala thoughts and feelings down in this digital paper of record. Obviously, with the Jeff Bezos of it all, this year was bound to be bleak, but I did not anticipate just how astonishingly bleak and, frankly, empty this red carpet would be. A travesty even by this event’s usual low standards. We have so much to get to today that I’m going to skip the usual rigamarole and jump right into it.
Welcome to what is perhaps the worst Mess Gala on record!
Let me kick things off here on a high note with a few of my fav looks of the night that actually understood the assignment. In a surprise to absolutely no one, Jordan Roth killed it in this custom Robert Wun (right) that triggers my automatonophobia in a very serious way, but is also perfect so I must allow it. I think the light taupe velvet takes the original design to another tier of eerie, as does Roth’s pitch-perfect posing, working those mannequin arms from every conceivable angle.
I also loved Emma Chamberlain in custom Mugler that looks like an oil painting melting off her body. I said this on the livestream, but it really does remind me of that scene in What Dreams May Come where they find themselves in “painted heaven,” which I know is a hyper specific, almost inscrutable reference, but such is my brain.
And Gwendolyn Christie in custom Giles Deacon proved why it pays to have a master couturier husband at home. Although, I do wish the body of this dress was done in some sumptuous, plush velvet instead, but the accessories more than make up for any quibbles I may have. The Stephen Jones ostrich feathers are a fantastic, dramatic addition and the dual-sided mirror/mask is fittingly unnerving. I feel like Gwendolyn walked in that Margiela Artisinal Spring 2024 show and discovered her truest form — a gorgeously bedecked, creepy Victorian doll.
It was also a huge night for prosthetics. While I traditionally do not condone costume dressing at this gala as Jared Leto and Katy Perry have pushed me to my absolute brink on that front, I must make an exception for our reigning Queen of Halloween Heidi Klum in this perfectly executed reference to Raffaele Monti’s “The Veiled Vestal.” She’s one of the only people that night who referenced a sculpture instead of a painting. I’m also partial to this look because I just interviewed Mike Marino, the special effects artist who made this and all of Heidi’s Halloween costumes, for the website (stay tuned) and hearing him describe its actual fabrication is mind-blowing. He also made the excellent point that this prosthetic embodies every form of art at once. It is a foam latex sculpture that has been hand painted to look like marble and then serves as a sort of live performance piece, and it doesn’t get much more “fashion is art” than that!
I’m also obsessed with Anok Yai’s frozen tears. And I feel this beauty detail also underscores my biggest pet peeve with Vogue’s red carpet livestream coverage which is that they don’t zoom in on anything so all the finer points of outfits like this are completely lost in the hustle and bustle of the red carpet! This is a fashion event, GIVE. ME. THE DETAILS!!!!!
And I’m going to round out the free portion of today’s Met Gala email by alerting you to two enormous Mess trend predictions that came to fruition on the first Monday in May. We got ANOTHER bubble dress. Truly, genuinely, what are the odds. This time it came to us not from the Nader sisters shilling natural deodorant, but rather Eileen Gu in an Iris Van Herpen dress that had a bubble machine hidden somewhere within it so that real bubbles floated all around her as she walekd. This dress is radically better looking and better constructed than those Gaga knock-offs I previously showed you, but I’m still waiting for someone to formally take the plunge into non-faux soap droplets and figure out how to fashion them into a semi-permanent garment. I’m thinking frozen bubbles might be the next logical step in the evolution of this aesthetic…
And just in case that wasn’t enough creepy trend intuition for you this week, Alexa Chung also shared this BTS photo of someone standing atop an apple crate on that red carpet. AN APPLE CRATE! Strap these to a famous person’s feet and let’s officially check this off our 2026 bingo card.
Ok, now let’s talk Lauren Sanchez, Kim Kardashian, and the rest of these clowns.