From Princess Diana To Kim Kardashian, 36 Of The Most Legendary Met Gala Looks To Date
The 2025 Met Gala has been and gone, with Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Anna Wintour co-chairing this year’s star-studded event, in celebration of the Costume Institute’s latest exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. The dress code, “Tailored for You” saw stars turning out in their finest threads, tapping the world’s most in-demand and exciting designers for the task.
Read more: Met Gala 2025 Red Carpet
While most A-listers take a more-is-more approach these days (see any of Rihanna, Lady Gaga or Kim Kardashian’s past looks for evidence), the annual fundraiser was once a more understated affair: Kate Moss’s lemon Calvin Klein dress from 1995 lives long in the memory, as does the lace-trimmed Dior slip that Diana, Princess of Wales, wore to attend the following year.
The turning point was arguably Rihanna’s Guo Pei omelette gown from 2018 – aka the dress that sparked 1,000 memes. Since then, we’ve had everything from Lady Gaga’s four-in-one creation by Brandon Maxwell that doubled up as performance art for 2019’s Camp theme to Kim Kardashian’s Marilyn Monroe moment in 2022.
Below, take a look back at all the best looks from past Met Galas.
Michael Loccisano/GA/Getty Images1/36Diana Ross in Eleven Sixteen (2025)
Marking her grand return to the Met Gala after a 22 year hiatus (!), Diana Ross’s gala gown came courtesy of Nigerian designer Ugo Mozie who co-designed the 18-foot gown with Ross’s son, Evan. The dress was a full family affair, not only being co-designed by her son, but also featuring the names of all of her children and eight grandchildren.
Photography Ron Galella/WireImage2/36Bianca Jagger in Halston (1977)
When American designer Halston launched his eponymous clothing line in 1966, the Parisian fashion establishment was shaken. His was an accessible, unruly glamour worn by a decadent girl gang of “Halstonettes” including Bianca Jagger, his date for the 1977 Gala (theme: “Vanity Fair: A Treasure Trove”) where New York’s explosive downtown scenesters and well-heeled uptown crowd mingled in the halls of the Met. Jagger wore a Halston halter-neck metallic dress with matching shawl and drawstring evening bag with an overtly disco edge. There was only one after-party destination: a new nightclub called Studio 54.
Photography Theo Wargo / WireImage3/36Lady Gaga in Brandon Maxwell (2019)
You can always count on Lady Gaga to make a sensational (in this case, 16 minute) Met Gala entrance. For “Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion”, the superstar wore an enormous fuchsia cape coat (encompassing 25 yards of fabric, to be precise), created by her longtime friend and collaborator Brandon Maxwell. The drama did not end there. Over the course of her live red-carpet performance, the cape was unfastened to reveal a black strapless bustier gown which was, in turn, shed to showcase a shocking-pink dress. Which was then removed to unveil a sparkling bra and knickers. “I know intrinsically that I have a camp soul,” she told American Vogue while getting ready for the big event. Truer words were never spoken.
John Shearer4/36Janelle Monae in Thom Browne (2025)
Janelle Monae never disappoints on the first Monday in May. With a theme, “Tailored For You” that seemed almost made for her, Monae collaborated with Oscar-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell and Thom Browne for the 2025 edition. Monae’s look was a “deconstructed, then reconstructed take on the tuxedo,” offering a “transformation from the familiar to the surreal,” wrote Browne.
WWD/Getty Images5/36Kim Kardashian in archive Jean Louis (2022)
Her romance with Pete Davidson (her plus one for the 2022 Met Gala) may not have lasted, but Kim Kardashian’s Marilyn Monroe moment is forever. Kim famously ran on a treadmill twice a day wearing a sauna suit in order to get into the screen icon’s priceless “Happy Birthday Mr President” dress, which was loaned to her by Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum. She also spent 14 hours having her hair dyed the perfect shade of blonde the day before the ceremony. No one could accuse her of not making an effort.
Photography New York Daily News / Getty Images6/36Diana, Princess of Wales, in Dior (1996)
Princess Diana made her one and only appearance at the Met Gala in 1996, three months after news of her divorce from Prince Charles was first made public. By today’s red-carpet standards – and the Met Ball’s “naked” dress phenomenon – Princess Diana’s look could be (mistakenly) regarded as demure, but this navy blue lingerie gown – a Dior classic designed by then creative director John Galliano – signalled a new and liberated moment. The 1996 Gala honoured the legacy of Christian Dior, and naturally, Galliano himself was on hand to escort the Princess of Wales around the Met, alongside former British Vogue editor-in-chief Liz Tilberis. We also can’t ignore the jewellery: a seven-stranded pearl choker necklace, with an enormous sapphire and diamond clasp.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images7/36Jennie Kim in Chanel (2025)
A Chanel global ambassador since 2019, Jennie Kim came to the 2025 Met Gala with a modern dandy twist. The Blackpink superstar took the theme seriously: a black satin jumpsuit festooned with Chanel’s signature pearls, a dramatic cape, a monogrammed trilby and classic black pumps, altogether taking 330 hours to make.
Photography Rabbani and Solimene / Getty Images8/36Rihanna in Guo Pei (2015)
We were torn between the superstar’s 2017 Comme des Garçons petal dress and the 2015 “omelette” cape-gown hybrid by Chinese couturier Guo Pei, but for sheer impact the one-of-a-kind yellow cape wins. RiRi stole the show (and arguably the entire year in style), nailing the “China: Through the Looking Glass” theme in one fabulous fell swoop, with a piece that weighed in at 25kg and took more than two years to create. The Pei-RiRi partnership has since become the modern benchmark for how a designer, little known outside her home country, can become a worldwide Vogue sensation before the sun has set on the first Monday in May.
