It’s time to bid so long and fare thee well to Cowboy Carter: when Beyoncé hit the 2026 Met Gala red carpet, everything about her look signaled that, thrillingly, a new era of Bey is upon us.
As one of the evening’s co-chairs, the reappearance of Beyoncé (and her family!) on the Met steps had been both long-awaited and much-discussed. Though she’s a seven-time attendee, we haven’t seen her since 2016’s “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.”
For her eighth appearance, there was not a touch of Americana in sight. Instead, it was far more… dare we say, rock and roll? It started with the megastar’s body-conscious dress: a skin-tone mesh base was embellished with a diamond skeleton that traveled all the way down to her fingers. (Perfectly hitting the “Fashion is Art” dress code, and so, appearing on Vogue’s best dressed list.) “It’s designed by Olivier Rousteing, somebody who has been so loyal to me, and I’ve done so many iconic looks with him,” Beyoncé told Lala Anthony during the live stream interview after climbing the garden-inspired steps. Over the dress, she wore a feathered opera-coat-meets-train that took five people to carry up the stairs.
When it came to her glam, Beyoncé’s own Cécred line was on hand to make the look happen, of course. “We wanted to up the drama for the big night,” says Neal Farinah, the star’s longtime hairstylist. He describes the style as “ethereal waves that are a celebration of texture,” saying he used products like the Thermal Shield Mist and Thermal Shield Mist to get the look right. “To complement the beautiful headpiece, I used the Strong Hold Gel to define some face-framing waves,” Farinah explains to Vogue. “We needed to keep the hair flowing with that beautiful feather train.” Overall, it was fit for the queen she is.
Photo: Getty Images
“It feels surreal, because my daughter is here,” Beyoncé says of her return to the Met Gala. “I am excited to experience it through her eyes.” She was also excited by the theme of the night’s event, and how it celebrated bodies of all kinds: “Juicy, curvy, thin, [just] celebrating whatever God gave you.”
Perhaps we will have something else to celebrate soon, too. Speculation had surrounded Beyoncé’s appearance at the 2026 Met Gala, suggesting that we’re heralding the beginning of the long-awaited “Act III,” which is rumored to be a rock album. This punk-ish look has us thinking there is certainly something in the works. (Bey’s out-of-the-ordinary social activity—posts, references to archival clips—are good evidence, too. What will a new-era glam look like? More high-drama headpieces and flowing Bey-blonde waves, we hope.
