The Story Behind Emma Chamberlain’s Hand-Painted Gown for The Met Gala 2026

“There is sort of this watercolor feel, and I love watercolor painting,” she says. “But then also there’s a creepy, sort of ominous undertone to the gown, like the way that it moves. And that is very much my taste in art.”

To start the customized design course of, Chamberlain and Ellner despatched artwork references (together with works by Van Gogh and Munch) to Freitas and the Mugler group, then had a three-hour dialog to speak by concepts. Ellner additionally chosen archival Mugler seems as influences, together with a butterfly costume from 1997. (When Freitas despatched them the preliminary sketch, Chamberlain and Ellner had nearly no notes.)

The result’s a surprising robe, designed by Freitas and painted by hand by artist Anna Deller-Yeethat actually turns Chamberlain’s physique right into a canvas. It’s a sense she loves. “I really am someone who enjoys fashion the most when I get to be a complete blank canvas,” she says.

When it got here to her glam for the night, “We had some big, brave ideas of what I’d do,” she says, together with dyeing her hair brown. But on the finish of the day, she felt that the robe “was very much made for me as I am—I’m loving me looking like me in this gown.”