Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez paid $10 million or more – my guess is closer to $20 million – to sponsor and cochair this year’s Met Gala. Jeff didn’t even walk the carpet, he left Lauren to do the carpet on her own. Not only that, but Lauren reportedly wanted to wear a custom Schiaparelli exclusively, but it turns out that Schiaparelli also dressed Kylie Jenner! The scandal of it all! It’s also scandalous to lay out that kind of money and just turn out in the most basic prom dress ever. This was Lauren asking Schiaparelli to custom design a look based on John Singer Sargent’s Madame X. Girl…she was being dragged all night on social media. Spend all of that money to look like THAT.
Kylie Jenner’s Schiaparelli was much more indicative of what the house usually produces – a stiff bustier/corset piece with a taffeta skirt. This is awful, but it’s more of a “costume” than what Lauren Sanchez wore.
Speaking of people who sort of fumbled the theme… Emily Blunt. One of the few women in trousers, and one of the few women making it all about jewelry. Her Ashi Studio ensemble is supposed to be sort of a blank canvas for $500,000 worth of pearls from Mikimoto.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
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- New York, NY Celebrities at the 2026 Met Gala, celebrating “Costume Art” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Pictured: Lauren Sánchez BACKGRID USA 4 MAY 2026 BYLINE MUST READ: BFA.com / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY Celebrities at the 2026 Met Gala, celebrating “Costume Art” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Pictured: Lauren Sánchez BACKGRID USA 4 MAY 2026 BYLINE MUST READ: BFA.com / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Celebrities arrive at the 2026 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Costume Art’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Kylie Jenner Where: New York City, New York, United States When: 04 May 2026 Credit: TheStewartOfNY/INSTARimages
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- Celebrities arrive at the 2026 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Costume Art’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Emily Blunt Where: New York City, New York, United States When: 04 May 2026 Credit: TheStewartOfNY/INSTARimages
Man I’d be too afraid off moving my arm too quick and have all those pearls go flying on the floor.
Lauren looks like she’s having so much fun s/ . I bet Jeff just chickened out after all the criticism and left her hanging to walk by herself
How is it possible to look both tacky and boring??? Lauren is proof that money will never buy taste.
Kylie is slightly more interesting but her makeup is horrendous. She looks like she’s approaching her 50s and I don’t think she’s even 30 yet.
As for Emily…she looks comfortable.
Lauren’s face (and boobs) look painful.
I see what she was going for with the Madame X reference but really, it’s only the dropped shoulder strap that’s a clue. Otherwise it’s tight and tacky and (unless there’s something interesting going on at the back) definitely doesn’t say ‘Schiaparelli’.
Madame *seX*
I feel like she just found a painting of a woman in a sexy dress and decided that’s what she’d go with rather than being “inspired” per se.
The problem with Lauren is she shouldn’t have gone for the Madame X “look”. Take a look at the Sargent painting. Sargent’s Madame X is depicted with grace, w/out the bodice bursting boobies on display. Sargent’s Madame follows her long lines— the neck, the arm, the nose, the poise.
Lauren is more the Hollywood Jessica Rabbit look w/out the funny, adorable sexiness of Jessica. Lauren is where too much plastic morphing into the infamous Jocelyn Widerstein “cat woman” look.
It’s a shame. Whatever sense of joire de vivre or humour Lauren supposedly has, it’s all corseted and mummified by plastic surgery and literal corset.
She doesn’t evoke the painting at all, strap notwithstanding, nor did they even try to “riff” on the painting in any creative sense at all. At least give us something ludicrous and over the top? She just looks like she always looks, basic, tasteless blow-up-dollcore, which is MAGA’s favorite lewk.
Lauren just wants to show off her bolt ons.
Looking for the “like” button
It’s all so boring and dull—as an event it’s jumped the shark—like having a party in the Temple of Dendur back in the 80s.
The Met Gala used to feel like theater. Excess isn’t new. But the mood shifted. When the room gets this loud, it stops being style and starts being noise. When everything is amplified, nothing lands. Even beauty gets buried under “more.”
Style edits. Spectacle hoards.
@Tom, I love this astute comment. So well said!
Weirdly enough I dont think Lauren Sanchez looks bad – usually she looks a lot cheaper IMO. Maybe its the toned down makeup and hair? IDK. but the dress (again, like I said about Hailey Bieber) is pretty basic and boring. I get the inspiration behind it but it falls flat.
Kylie’s is at least interesting but the Kardashian-Jenners all decided that nipple bodices were the way to go and just…..no.
Emily Blunt looks great, but I typically like her fashion. Not always but typically.
Lauren doesn’t look bad at all, for herself especially. Have that dress cut off above the knee and it’s perfect for dinner on the yacht. It looks as if Jeff poored his cocktail on her good dress by accident and she had to change last minute into whatever she had in her ginormous closet.
i get that objectively she doesn’t look bad. but it’s the most basic uninspired interpretation of the event. i was seeing so many jokes before the gala about who’s going to do sargent because it’s such an easy reference for the theme, and then we get such an uninteresting take on it. you pay so much money to high jack fashion prom, and then pay again to get an (almost) exclusive deal with one of the most amazing art house couture designers out there, and this is what you give? it’s sexy david’s bridal. i saw a comment last night that ‘art under facism is never interesting’ and here you go. i honestly thought she was at least going to show out to counter all the criticism, but we just get a pumpkin spice latte of a dress. at least kylie did something interesting. i wish it fit better, but schiaparelli can do a corset, and at least she’s trying something. i don’t know. seeing sanchez last night really got me riled! ha!
I’m dying at “pumpkin spice latte of a dress” because that’s basically what it is. She looks nice enough but it is very boring. I think even with that same dress she could have made the whole look MORE with better styling.
Right. The Futurist Movement of 1920s Italy was really cool and interesting then the Fascists ruined it.
I guess Lauren looks *OK* but my god it is so boring. This rhetorical but why go above and beyond to control what is arguably the fashion event of the year when you don’t really have any true fashion sense? She doesn’t seem as interested in fashion as she is in buying the event so she can hobnob with celebs.
She actually looks more polished and sophisticated than, say, what we saw for a White House dinner a few months ago (something very red and corset-y and revealing). I read an interview where she said the only note she had for the designer / stylist for her Met Gala dress was to “have a waist”. Imagine – that’s your input. You’re reportedly very interested in fashion, you’re working with a top couture name, and you’ve secured the services of Law Roach as your stylist for the event. With a theme of “costume art” that gives so much to work with. And your input is – cinch the waist. So many billions, so few ideas…
Lauren Sanchez gave herself clown proportions with all the surgeries that she will never fit any theme but camp because she has removed all the aesthetically pleasing proportions from her body.
@kitten commenting that fascists ruined futurism is probably the most unintentionally theme dressing she has done with this.
A lot of people did not seem to be theming.
She just looks like she’s going to the Emmys. Looks nice, I don’t have anything bad to say about it. It’s always interesting to me to see the people that go all in on the theme, versus the people who dress like they’re just going to another award show.
I wonder though if some of those people have learned over the time that all of that extra stuff is incredibly uncomfortable to wear and it’s not worth it unless you’re changing as soon as you leave the red carpet. That could be why some of the people that come pretty often, always wear something basic.
I don’t normally like Kylie Jenner’s style but I think this works so well with the theme – Schiaparelli dresses play with design and form in a very sculptural way and because the theme includes the idea of the body as art I think the structured bodice and the draping of the skirt, plus the fact it kind of looks like she’s emerging naked from the costume, is really on point. I also actually love that Kylie is wearing it because she’s done so much sculpting of her own body so – even if that wasn’t the intention – it’s like a meta-commentary.
I thought it was a truly interesting dress too. Shocked it’s on a Kardashian.
Jessica Rabbit wore it better, Lauren.
Kylie looks ridiculous.
I too thought Lauren’s dress was boring, until I read somewhere that it’s a dupe of the dress worn by Madame X in the famous Sargent painting of a scandalous socialite. If I could post a side-by-side I would, because the comparison really is close, down to the arm straps. I’m not a fan of either Bezos, but I’m sort of impressed if this is true and Lauren’s capable of that much self-awareness.
But it is utterly the wrong fabric and colour. What made the painting so sensual and risque at the time, was the contrast of the pale skin and the gorgeous black velvet.
Lauren basically turns it into her go to look.
Basic and boring.
yeah, the Madame X painting is referenced in the post – but velvet would have been a lot better than the satin. I also think different hair would have helped.
Hilariously Claire foy wore an excellent adaptation of this painting and looked fab . So not only is this not he only dress from this designer it’s also not the best version inspired by that painting
It’s actually the strap on the other side that was originally painted slipping off the shoulder, but if you’ve ever seen the painting, you’d know immediately what Sanchez was referencing.
@Me at home, with respect to your last line, there’s a comment in the Met’s description about the 100th anniversary of the painting’s acquisition: “…young Sargent had boldly portrayed a new brazen “type” in Parisian society, a woman who audaciously used her appearance to gain celebrity and advance her social standing.”
This description is spot on for Sanchez, but I doubt she was trying to be so blatant (or self-aware). The painting is one of the Met’s most famous items, she would at least have known it was considered risque in its time, so suits her preferred style, and thought it was a clever idea to recreate. The sitter was the American wife of a Parisian banker, and was horrified by the response to the painting.
I saw this painting (and other amazing objects) from 2 feet away in a side room display case when the Met did its major renovation of the American Wing 15+ years ago. It’s even more incredible when you can observe it close up.
Have to agree that Sanchez turned the look into something basic and boring.
https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/how-madame-x-came-to-the-met
It’s close if “close” means wrong color and wrong fabric. I doubt that Sanchez came up with the idea.
Lauren looks nice overall. But is this the event to wear something restrained and quiet? No offense to Sargent, but that painting is a tad dull, especially when you have the entire art world to find inspiration! Agreed — all of the black dresses were “blank canvases” 🙄
I must disagree. That portrait was utterly shocking in its day, and is still strikingly elegant and evocative of a particular mood.
However, the dress was more texturally detailed in the portrait, and while it was similarly low cut, Madame X was not sporting giant bolt-ons. In fact the dress didn’t reveal her breasts at all.
Also, part of the strong effect of the portrait is the contrast of Madame’s very white skin, shown to be at least partly makeup by her pink, unpowdered ear, and the darkness not just of the black dress, but of the dark background behind her as well. That aspect is totally lost in Sanchez’s imitation.
I have to confess, I had gone to look for Lauren’s pink ear, but her ears are completely hidden by her hair. But the black-and-white contrast was never going to work for Lauren unless she completely powdered herself up, which would have looked … weird… so I’m OK with her tweaking the original to make it hers.
YMMV. Those bolt-ons, though….
Agree. Truly shocking and considered almost the finish of Sargent at one point. There was a shoulder strap re-paint job because at first it was off the shoulder one side.
Lauren showed her only good taste for hiring Law Roach.
Kylie’s is actually really interesting. It’s inspired by the Venus de Milo and when you see the pic of the dress and the statue side by side, there is a clear vision.
I assume the make up is equally statue-inspired? She was definitely one of the few on theme.
Lauren’s dress is boring and basic. It’s no different than what she normally wears to formal events. And my God, her face literally looks like a creepy rubber mask! Why would she not schedule her most work so it would be settled in time for the major event she made her husband buy? Or does she genuinely think that this looks attractive?
Completely agree about her face. I couldn’t think of what it reminded me of, but rubber mask is spot on. I’d normally feel a little bad saying something like that, but she’s paid for it to look like that 😬
Yeah, that’s where I am as well when it comes to commenting on the looks of MAGA and MAGA-adjacent women. At this point, I would even argue that it’s a political statement on their part, and thus fair game.
Was it Salma Hayek who used to wear this kind of dress as her go-to? I think Lauren perhaps feels like this is also her ‘look’. I feel cruel saying this, but I don’t feel Lauren will ever look anything but, argh I really don’t want to put it like this, but she’ll never not look trashy. There, said it. However, if this is what she likes, let her like away! Salma Hayek does it better but, even with her, it got boring.
Hilariously Claire foy wore an excellent adaptation of this painting and looked fab . So not only did Lauren not get exclusivity with the designer she didn’t even wear the best dress inspired by madam x
Claire’s look had that interesting head piece and also the sheen of the fabric and draping of the train gave the appearance of a black pool floating behind her. It was a more dramatic, interesting and far more effective take on Madame X.
Exactly it’s a well thought through and achieved look . A elegant and intelligent take on the picture
Are Lauren and Kylie the same person? Has anyone ever actually seen them standing together?
I get what you’re saying totally but at least Kylie’s fake lips don’t look like Heath Ledger’s Joker.
Give it five years.
I enjoyed the dragging of Lauren on Bluesky last night. She so deserves it.
I cannot unsee the armpit sweat stain effect on Kylie’s bustier. Plus the look is boring and it’s been done 1000 times per them
Sanchez is the example of what I didn’t like about the whole theme or the gala or I don’t know. To me, the point of the Costume Institute and having it housed at the MET is that fashion IS art, not that it copies other peoples’ art. Sanchez didn’t even bother to be “inspired” by Sargent and I’m surprised that this came from Schiaparelli, but I suppose anything for money.
Overall, I thought this was an argument for why fashion isn’t art, but there were some standouts, like Chase Infiniti, Anne Hathaway, Janelle Monae, Colman Domingo. I know, I’m railing against the theme, but a lot of the looks were uninspired even as fashion, never mind referencing other art forms. So much sheer, so many droopy trains and flaps and hanging bits…I don’t know…
Madame X is all about the elegant, beautiful lines of her arms and neck, and the intimacy of her pale bared skin against the dark dress. Her dress is also two different fabrics with beautiful draping.
Lauren’s dress is one fabric, no draping, with her breasts drooping the cups down. No lines, no elegance.And of course, the MAGA creeps performing femininity have a long hair fetish, so Lauren has her newscaster hair flopping around everywhere.
I don’t know why everything she wears has to be so tight with emphasis on her breast implants and cinched waist. She basically designs her look around it. She dressed carefully for this event because she’s obviously heard the criticism and wanted to look more understated and “ respectable”. However as a cochair with the money she should have gone bolder and fun. This outfit, if less tight, would have worked for Met Gala 1991, when the social X rays of those days dominated.
Sorry but… Lauren played it safe and wise. She hired Zendaya’s stylist, who brought her under control. Suspect she is at the beginning of a personal repositioning. Stay tuned. She actually had her own career and is known to be pretty smart. Anything is possible.
Julianne Moore also wore a Madame X dress (she was with Tom Ford, not sure if it’s his design or not but it looks luscious enough on her to be his!) and she was stunning.
I’m sorry, every single person who went to this is canceled for me. These aren’t ordinary times, and to attend this Bezos event, especially after Amazon just fired ~20k people, is a tacit endorsement of this regime. Going to a party is not that important. It was not-see party.
100% agree. Too bad no one from the Washington Post was able to attend.
The Met left some critical info out of their description of Madame X. Madame X was shunned by Parisian society as a result of wearing that dress became an alcoholic and died alone, depressed. There fixed it for you.
Let’s hope the same happens to Lauren and more importantly Jeff.
That’s not quite true. She became more selective after the scandal, but she continued to raise her daughter and live with her husband until 13 years later when her daughter got married. She continued to be a major society presence, but more discretely. She also sat for photos and portraits with several other artists until her death 27 years after this portrait.
Law Roach is an amazing stylist and I see he toned it down a lot for Lauren, which she always needs. I hope he charged her a fortune. He surely deserved it.
I knew immediately what she was trying to reference- it’s just poorly done and not right for her body type. The dress is basic and boring for a theme that is fashion as art. It wasn’t inspired by the painting – there is no juxtaposition of color and textures.
And I can’t believe I am going to defend the kardasians. Kylie and Kendall very specifically referenced works of art. Kendall was the state of Nike, Kylie was the venue di Milo). It’s why they had “nipples” . It’s a little referential but they weren’t direct copies so it was fairly on point for the theme.
Lauren just slapped on a blue dress with some rhinestone straps and called it a day
Law Roach made Sanchez as demure as she’s ever going to look, and I think he deserves an award for this bit of magic. A Pulitzer?
Claire Foy did it so much better. Claire for the win.
I like Emily’s dress as a standalone; it’s actually quite beautiful. All I know of her, away from acting, is that she works with stuttering charities because she had one as a kid/young adult. Stuttering affects some of my family on one side, so I appreciate that.
Instead of focusing on the outfits, should we be looking at those who showed up at Trump’s minion’s party?
Lauren could’ve killed it had she referenced Sargent’s La Carmencita instead of going for the expected Madame X. It’s dramatic, colorful and would reflect her Latina heritage. And it’s not form fitting which would’ve been a departure big enough to get extra press.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27La_Carmencita%27_by_John_Singer_Sargent,_1890,_Mus%C3%A9e_d%27Orsay.jpg
I do love some of the attendees, and fashion but I personally think it should have been a full out boycott, FU to Bezos and Trump regime. Just my opinion, love to you Kaiser, all at CB and all here.
Hatched face Lauren, as I affectionately call her, will never look good in anything. The over-filled face, chest, and hands will always overshadow whatever this bint wears.