At the 2026 Met Gala, the theme, “Costume Art,” was likely to prompt plenty of naked dressing and sculpted bodies, and tonight, Hailey Bieber’s look was no exception. The model and makeup mogul stepped out onto the red carpet in a custom Saint Laurent dress featuring a sculpted bodice made entirely of 24-karat gold. A long blue silk chiffon skirt flowed out from underneath, whose breezy movement gave peeks of metallic leather sandals. (Gladiator sandals? The 2016 revival is still going strong.)
The look is directly inspired by Saint Laurent’s fall 1969 couture collection, where Yves Saint Laurent collaborated with French artist and sculptor Claude Lalanne to mold two sculpted bodices. Lalanne employed an electroplating process to give the metals a realistic effect that then served as a sharp contrast to the diaphanous muslin dresses. The iconic collection is just one example of the pair’s frequent collaborations—and one of many of Yves Saint Laurent’s artistic references.
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It’s been just over a decade since Hailey Bieber made her Met Gala debut for “China: Through the Looking Glass,” where she wore an embroidered powder blue mini dress by Topshop—a color she returned to for her 2018 “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” Tommy Hilfiger look. In 2021, the Rhode founder made her official Met Gala couple’s debut alongside her husband Justin Bieber. The two kept things simple and pared back, with Hailey in an Old Hollywood black Saint Laurent gown and Justin in a matching suit (with bejeweled Crocs, of course.)
Since then, Hailey has worn Saint Laurent three more times, including tonight. At last year’s event, she ditched her pants in favor of a Saint Laurent blazer mini dress, offering a tailored twist on her relaxed but polished style. Tonight’s Greek goddess deviated from what we’ve come to expect from the makeup mogul; however, if there’s anything that she emphasized in her 2025 cover story, it was the importance of health and wellness in both mind and body—and tonight was all about body.
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