Gwendoline Christie’s admiration for the work of her longtime partner, the British designer Giles Deacon, goes way back. “I’ve wanted to wear Giles for the Met Gala since before I was even in a relationship with Giles, and that’s 13 years ago,” she tells Vogue. “So this has been a long time coming.”
Tonight, the Game of Thrones and Wednesday star arrived at the 2026 Met Gala in a showstopping Giles dress that pays homage to a trio of artists that Christie holds close to her heart. First, there’s John Singer Sargent (a long-standing inspiration for Deacon too), whose “elegance” and “graceful line,” in Christie’s own words, is visible in the cinched waist and mermaid skirt of the dress’s silhouette. Then there’s the work of the British Surrealist photographer Madame Yevonde, whose pioneering work in the 1930s and ’40s Christie remembers discovering while assisting a friend studying at Central Saint Martins. “I was fascinated by her photos,” Christie recalls, noting that she also made the recent discovery that Yevonde was a distant relative of hers. (With her striking cheekbones and large, expressive eyes, you can see the resemblance.) Another inspiration? The countercultural New York poet, publisher, and photographer Ira Cohen, whose “hallucinogenic, distorted” images inspired the swirling strips of color running diagonally across the dress.
Photo: Getty Images
Arguably the most striking creative detail of Christie’s look, though, is the mask of her own face that she paraded down the carpet—created by none other than Gillian Wearing, the celebrated British YBA artist who won the 1997 Turner Prize. While Christie was involved in every aspect of the look—her encyclopedic knowledge of fashion and cultural history is seriously impressive, as she reels off the likes of Claude Cahun and Elizabeth I’s Rainbow Portrait as other influences on the look—it turns out that the mask was actually Deacon’s idea. “I think Gillian’s work is singular and fascinating—she has a kind of unsettling beauty, which I adore,” says Deacon.
“As I’m slowly finding in life, sometimes it works to ask for the impossible,” Christie adds. “We have mutual friends, and I contacted Gillian to ask, and she said yes immediately. And what I love about it is that it isn’t one thing: It’s not just the mask. It isn’t just a mirror. It’s so many things. Is it a shield? Is it an expression?” Given Christie’s remarkable skill as a performer, it’s no surprise that she was able to sell every different possible interpretation on tonight’s red (or, more accurately, lush green) carpet. “It’s always fun to develop a persona [with Gwendoline] and bring movement into the conversation,” notes Deacon. “It expands the whole Fashion Is Art narrative into a very personal place, bringing the element of her artistic performance into it.”
