Cardi B is a major draw at the Met Gala, or any event of this scale, because she usually delivers.
I say “usually” because this Marc Jacobs look ranks as my least favourite of all her Met Gala appearances, overtaking even the Windowsen gown from 2024.
Here, she wore a sheer lace dress with exaggerated proportions inspired by the designer’s Spring 2025 collection, a concept we’ve already seen on Sarah Paulson with similarly inflated volumes. The inspiration behind the look traces back to The Doll by Hans Bellmer, a series of ten photographs featuring his modular, dismembered doll constructed in Berlin in 1933. That reference helps explain the distorted, almost disjointed shaping of the silhouette.
On Cardi, the execution leans heavily into those sculpted, pillowy accents.
The issue isn’t the idea of pushing proportion, especially for a theme like “Costume Art,” where exaggeration can make sense. In fact, the Hans Bellmer reference explains the distorted, disjointed shaping. It’s how it translates here. The oversized, padded elements around the shoulders and hem still feel disconnected from the body of the dress, creating a shape that reads as awkward.
The only way this fully lands is if she’s in on the joke, because the elements tip this into something that feels painfully ironic and comical.
As a certain lady once said, “what was the reason?”
Stylist: Kollin Carter.
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