Cher walked into the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974 wearing a sheer Bob Mackie gown covered in sequins and feathers, and the concept of the Met Gala outfit was born. Before that night, the Costume Institute benefit was a society dinner where wealthy New Yorkers wrote checks and wore tasteful gowns. Cher treated it like a stage. Every memorable Met Gala moment since has followed her logic: the red carpet is a performance, and the outfit is the work.
The Met Gala has been held annually since 1948, but it became the event we recognize — part fashion show, part costume party, part cultural referendum — under Anna Wintour's stewardship, which began in 1995. Tickets now cost $75,000. Tables start at $350,000. The evening raises roughly $20 million for the Costume Institute each year. And the outfits that guests wear generate billions of social media impressions overnight.
Here are the looks that earned their place in the archive.
Cher in Bob Mackie, 1974
The one that started everything. Mackie's naked dress — sheer fabric studded with crystals and feathers — predated the "naked dress" trend by five decades. Cher wore it with the confidence of someone who understood, decades before Instagram existed, that fashion is about being seen.
Princess Diana in John Galliano for Dior, 1996
Diana wore a navy Galliano slip dress with lace trim to her first and only Met Gala, just a year before her death. The dress was a departure from her usual structured elegance — simpler, sexier, almost casual by royal standards. It marked her post-divorce reinvention and Galliano's arrival at the house of Dior.
Rihanna in Guo Pei, 2015
The yellow fur-trimmed cape with the 16-foot train became the most memed Met Gala outfit in history — compared to an omelet, a pizza, Big Bird. The comparisons only proved the point. For the "China: Through the Looking Glass" theme, Rihanna wore a Chinese couturier that most Western fashion watchers had never heard of, and the dress dominated the internet for a week. At the 2025 Met Gala, Rihanna returned in custom Marc Jacobs and used the red carpet to reveal her third pregnancy — because when you've already won the game, the only move left is to change the rules.
Sarah Jessica Parker in Alexander McQueen, 2006
Parker wore a tartan plaid McQueen gown with an enormous Philip Treacy headpiece for the "AngloMania" theme. The look was polarizing at the time and is now cited as the moment the Met Gala's dress code shifted from "elegant" to "theatrical." Parker understood the assignment before anyone was using that phrase.
Blake Lively in Versace, 2022
Lively's copper Versace gown, designed as a tribute to the Statue of Liberty, featured a reveal: the copper overskirt unfurled to show a teal train underneath, mimicking the statue's patina. It was fashion as civic architecture, referencing both New York's most famous monument and the "Gilded Glamour" theme.
Zendaya in Dolce & Gabbana, 2017
A floral off-the-shoulder gown paired with blown-out natural hair and a birds-of-paradise choker. Zendaya was 20 years old, attending her second Met Gala, and looked like someone who'd been dressing for events like this her entire life. She's since become one of the Gala's most reliably interesting attendees — working with Law Roach to turn each appearance into a thesis statement.
Lady Gaga in Brandon Maxwell, 2019
Gaga arrived in a massive fuchsia gown, stripped down to a black dress, then to a pink column dress, then to crystal lingerie — four looks in 16 minutes, performed like a Broadway number on the Met steps. For the "Camp: Notes on Fashion" theme, she didn't wear camp. She performed it.
Tyla in Balmain, 2024
The South African singer wore an hourglass-shaped Balmain gown inspired by sand, and the reveal — the skirt was cut into a mini dress with scissors during the event — blurred the line between fashion and performance art. Olivier Rousteing designed a garment meant to be destroyed in front of cameras, which is either the apex of Met Gala thinking or its logical absurdity.
Diana Ross, 2025
Ross returned to the Met Gala after 22 years, and she did it wearing a 60-pound gown with an 18-foot train embroidered with the names of every one of her children and grandchildren. For the "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" theme, Ross made the personal political and the political personal — wearing her family tree as couture.
What's Coming: Met Gala 2026
The 2026 Met Gala is set for May 4, with a theme of "Costume Art" and a dress code of "Fashion is Art." Co-chairs include Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams, alongside host committee members like Sabrina Carpenter and Doja Cat. The theme explores fashion's status as art and should produce the most conceptual red carpet in recent memory.
The Met Gala's greatest contribution to fashion isn't the clothes — it's the idea that getting dressed can be a public art form. The looks that endure aren't the prettiest or the most expensive. They're the ones where the wearer understood that the red carpet is a canvas, and the outfit is the argument. For more on how fashion's biggest stages work, see our guide to the best fashion documentaries and Tinsel's coverage of Schiaparelli's evolving surrealism.
