Cardi B and the Met Gala Body (Parts)
– 5 min read
As I wrote earlier, when the Met Gala theme and its corresponding dress code are so broad, most people just use it as an excuse to turn the red carpet into the Oscars and go for pretty. Pretty over funny, pretty over weird, pretty over bold. Those who take advantage of the Met Gala to fully lean into the more bizarre and often exhilarating strangeness of fashion as an artform, then, are the ones who have elevated this event and made it the pop culture destination we now know it to be. Rihanna, Zendaya, and now Cardi B.
Cardi has consistently arrived at the Met Gala with drama, comedy, absurdity, sometimes all of the above. And this year she and Marc Jacobs had the sense of humour to take the theme of dressing the body – and its attendant parts – to grotesque heights. But, you know, still make it snatched.
Officially the inspiration here is Hans Bellmer’s The Doll and his work is featured in the museum proper. Cardi and Marc Jacobs made that wearable and in motion, in movement, on the body, it looks even more like it’s been turned inside out, with the insides on the outside. The hem of the skirt, for example, looks intestinal to me. And those bobbles on the shoulders? With the highest praise, I see anuses. Anal shoulders! LOL FOREVER and ONLY CARDI.
This is freaky and it’s funny and it’s FUN. Nobody is having more fun than she is, and she has the most fun, always, when she goes for it. This is a legendary, all-time look for the Met Gala, instant Hall of Fame.
And I appreciate Lisa for the same reason – wearing her own arms in addition to her arms in a Robert Wun (remember what I said about him as a standout this year!), and bringing the theatricality to the look, which it deserves.
It’s on another level too when you consider the functionality, using the extra arms to highlight the veil, and to keep the veil off her face, and perhaps a statement about the feminine if we want to get deeper: every woman needs an extra pair of hands… haven’t we heard that before? Before the arms came on, she needed two people to help her with the veil-train.
Jeremy Pope wore the body on top of his body in pearls, a high fashion bodybuilder which, of course, is performance art in and of itself. A bodybuilder’s canvas is their physique and they craft and shape and twist it to the body’s extremes.
This is beautifully done, and of course Law Roach was involved.
@luxurylaw Jeremy Pope in Vivienne Westwood FW95 for the Met Gala. Want to see more?
♬ So Fresh, So Clean (Instrumental) - Outkast
If you had told me ahead of the Met Gala that Kylie Jenner would be playing on the theme of dressing the body, my reaction would have been… duh. This was expected. And the silhouette here is nothing new from Kylie. But what was surprising is how well she adapted her signature style to the theme – the parts here are the breasts, the nipples, the belly button by Schiaparelli but deconstructed to look like an unfinished piece of clothing on a mannequin, the story of the artist’s work in progress. Sorry, I don’t hate it.
I do, however, hate Kim Kardashian’s take on the body. There’s nothing fresh here, and I would say that she seems to know it, given how uncomfortable and thoroughly unimpressed she seems with herself, at least that’s what her body language is saying.
Compare that energy with the year she showed up in the Marilyn Monroe dress (that she nearly ruined), when she was feeling herself so hard, smug as f-ck at the stunt she pulled off…
…and you know she knows that no internet was being broken by her appearance last night. Plus Lewis Hamilton was a no-show, so she couldn’t play that card either.
Cardi B/Lisa attends The 2026 Met Gala Celebrating "Costume Art" at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 04, 2026 in New York City
Jeremy Pope/Kylie Jenner attend The 2026 Met Gala Celebrating "Costume Art" at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 04, 2026 in New York City
Kim Kardashian attends The 2026 Met Gala Celebrating "Costume Art" at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 04, 2026 in New York City
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