The Story Behind Emma Chamberlain’s Hand-painted Met Gala Dress

Emma Chamberlain wore a piece of art on the 2026 Met Gala red carpet in New York City on Monday.

Chamberlain commissioned Chicago-born interdisciplinary artist and designer Anna Deller-Yee to hand-paint a custom Mugler dress, a choice inspired by the evening’s “Fashion Is Art” dress code. The dress was created in collaboration between Delle-Yee and Mugler’s creative director, Miguel Castro Freitas, and styled by Jared Ellner.

The dress was made entirely using traditional fine art materials, according to Deller-Yee. No conventional fashion-based paints were used. The artist worked with approximately 30 base colors, expanded through custom mixing, across roughly 40 hours of painting time, followed by approximately four days of drying with ventilation.

Deller-Yee has previously created hand-painted pieces for Anna Wintour and has collaborated with Marni and Schiaparelli.

Chamberlain has attended the Met Gala every year since making her debut in 2021 in custom Louis Vuitton, becoming one of the event’s most consistently discussed younger attendees. She returned in 2022, also in Louis Vuitton, serving as Vogue’s red carpet video host, and in 2023 in a baby blue Miu Miu look with exposed white socks and matching heels. In 2024, she wore Jean Paul Gaultier, inspired by the house’s early 2000s archives, and in 2025 served again as Vogue’s carpet host in a backless Coperni dress that drew from men’s suiting.

The 2026 Met Gala took place on Monday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This year’s exhibition, “Costume Art,” celebrated fashion as an art form, with a dress code of “Fashion Is Art.” The event was co-chaired by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez-Bezos serving as honorary chairs. The annual benefit raises funds for the Met’s Costume Institute.