At the 2026 Met Gala, Zoë Kravitz made a compelling case for black lace as a medium of historical storytelling. The actress and cochair arrived on Monday evening in a floor-length gown by Saint Laurent, designed by Anthony Vaccarello—a house whose origins trace back to Yves Saint Laurent’s revolutionary 1966 “Le Smoking” tuxedo, which first blurred the lines between masculine tailoring and feminine allure. Kravitz’s gown featured a structured, nearly opaque bodice with a scalloped sweetheart neckline, while the full skirt dissolved into diaphanous transparency toward the hem. This silhouette evokes the layered modesty of the Victorian era, when lace was often used to conceal as much as it revealed—a paradox that lingerie has navigated for centuries. Her only accents were green stone drop earrings and a large ivory sculptural ring, allowing the fabric to command attention. The look marks a return to the Met steps after a four-year hiatus; her last appearance, in 2021, was in a sheer, bejeweled mesh Saint Laurent gown that became a defining moment of that evening. Kravitz first attended the gala in 2008 at age nineteen, and her evolving wardrobe—from an Oscar de la Renta pink confection in 2017 to increasingly transparent Saint Laurent designs—mirrors the broader cultural shift toward celebrating undergarments as outerwear. This year’s exhibition, “Costume Art,” with its “Fashion Is Art” dress code, provided the perfect stage for such nuanced sartorial archaeology.
Originally reported by WWD