Bad Bunny: Met Gala Best Dressed (Lainey)

Back in February, at the Benito Bowl, Bad Bunny wore two Zara custom fits for his historic performance. It was, to use a word I’ve avoided so far today because I’ve been saving it for this post… groundbreaking. Three months later Bad Bunny’s Zara is the cerulean sweater of the Met Gala, a design that could have started at a number of fashion houses, from Dior to Jacquemus, and through the fashion life cycle will eventually make its way to the mall, in some iteration, after Benito’s blessing.

That’s just part of the life cycle that Benito was performing this year, adding yet another memorable appearance to his list of Met Gala showings that have established him as one of the event's most anticipated arrivals. He is, in my opinion, now the men’s Rihanna where this party is concerned – always intentional, thoughtful, off-beat, unexpected…

And to go back to the life cycle, in 2026 Benito wore Benito 2079, as he told La La Anthony it took him 53 years to get ready. I screamed when he said this, I screamed at the commitment to the costume.

On theme AS F-CK. The Costume Institute’s exhibition explores the relationship between fashion and the body, the body by all its angles, the body in all stages, including the stage that is often neglected, overlooked, even rejected by what has become the fashion industry: the aging body.

As one of the most vibrant musicians of his time, an artist who has been able to capture the imagination and the devotion of all generations, especially a younger generation, for Benito to illuminate the beauty, or the future beauty of his aged self is an interpretation of the thesis without equal. And perhaps, on a personal level, as he moves deeper into his 30s, this is a parallel meditation he’s having with himself since he is no longer a new jack in the business nor in life. Entertainers are often engaging with their own legacy as they, in the present, consider their sonic progression and how that might complete the body of work they want to leave behind. Having just performed at the Benito Bowl, which is often for the artists invited to headline, a retrospective of their discography, Bad Bunny must have spent a significant amount of time curating that 14-minute musical portrait of his catalogue; there is connective tissue here, then, at least the way I see it, between that monumental achievement in his career and where his head might be at in the aftermath…

Expressed through how he chose to present and perform his physical self at the Met Gala. And given what we know of Benito, how studied he is, through his activism, through his cultural pride, it is not a stretch to believe that these were the ideas that he was ruminating on when he was designing and choreographing this iconic look.

I love it, I love him, he is singular, and we are lucky he decided to attend this year.