Awards season fashion was fun again at the BAFTAs. The Met Gala’s dress code continues to be a work of art. Here’s what to expect at Frieze L.A., including all the fashion tie-ins. Plus, inside Sarah Staudinger and Ari Emanuel's banger of a party to celebrate Staud's artsy new Tommy bag.
By Booth Moore
Chase Infiniti, wearing custom Louis Vuitton, and Leonardo DiCaprio backstage during the EE BAFTA Film Awards 2026 at The Royal Festival Hall on Feb. 22, 2026 in London, England. Source: Getty
BAFTAs Best Dressed and Nods to Britishness
The BAFTA Film Awards shook up awards season in more ways than one.
Maybe it was host Alan Cumming setting the bar with his signature eclectic style, or the chance to let loose across the pond, where the politics are arguably more royally messed up than they are in the U.S. But after weeks of banal black and white, celebrities had fun with fashion again on the red carpet — with plenty of nods to Britishness.
Best Drama
Chase Infiniti embodied the night's playful mood, appearing as a modern-minimalist ingenue in a plum-colored custom Louis Vuitton mermaid gown, which One Battle After Another daddy Leonardo DiCaprio helped her navigate down the stairs in the photo above.
Tayana Taylor in Burberry. Source: Getty
Nods to Merry England
Dramatic collars brought flair to several looks, including Teyana Taylor's fab trench gown by British fashion stalwart Burberry, which offered plenty of opportunities for side-eye.
Archie Madekwe in Dior. Source: Getty
Archie Madekwe's crystal-tipped pleated Dior collar brought to mind a ruff. A style associated with Elizabethan England, the pleated collar, fashionable with both men and women, was historically starched and sometimes even boned. But Dior designer Jonathan Anderson's modern take is more relaxed, as seen in his Fall 2026 runway collection shown in Paris last month.
Kirsten Dunst. Source: Getty
Meanwhile, the Leg-of-Mutton sleeves on Kirsten Dunst's divine pale pink Valentino moiré jacket referenced a Victorian-era flourish, historically designed to accentuate a small waistline.
Wunmi Mosaku wearing Ahluwalia and Jessie Buckley in custom Chanel. Source: Getty
Royal Hues and Gardens of Delight
Colors popped all around. Wunmi Mosaku and Jessie Buckley twinned in royal blue gowns and BAFTA mask statuettes.
Jenna Coleman wearing Giorgio Armani Privé. Source: Getty
Jenna Coleman was one of many to wear regal red, choosing a nude illusion gown scattered with crimson embroidered roses from the Giorgio Armani Privé Fall 2023 collection.
Alicia Vikander wearing custom Louis Vuitton. Source: Getty
Alicia Vikander's custom Louis Vuitton gown, with cutout bodice and flowering embroidery, was an early spring treat.
Gracie Abrams, wearing Chanel, and Paul Mescal in Prada. Source: Getty
Gracie Abrams was also in a romantic mood, making her red carpet debut with beau Paul Mescal, while wearing an intricately-embroidered Chanel floral gown with pretty green beaded trim from Matthieu Blazy's 2026 Métiers d'art collection.
Joe Alwyn wearing Valentino and Chloe Zhao in Gabriela Hearst. Source: Getty
Storytelling With Style
Director Chloe Zhao was a ray of sunshine in a golden gown that was a sneak peek at Gabriela Hearst's Fall 2026 collection, set to debut at Paris Fashion Week later this month. The repurposed ivory linen twill dress, coated in gold aluminum with laser-cut leaf motifs, was inspired by the Le Soleil XIX tarot card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille, which represents joy and success. On Sunday night, it was a good luck charm, too, with Zhao's Hamnet winning Best British Film.
Miyako Bellizzi wears Renaissance Renaissance. Source: Getty
Marty Supreme costume designer Miyako Bellizzi's custom iridescent burgundy Renaissance Renaissance gown also had a good story.
Miyako and Cynthia Merhej, creative director of Renaissance Renaissance, first met and collaborated when Bellizzi tapped her for help with costumes for the film Bonjour Tristesse starring Chloë Sevigny. Meanwhile, Bellizzi has become somewhat of a red carpet darling this season, landing on Best Dressed lists after wearing another ravishing red gown, by up-and-coming designer Gabriele Semeraro, to the Governors Awards.
Catherine, Princess of Wales. Source: Getty
Few could compete with Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, and her storied royal jewels, including a sparkling diamond choker bracelet and dangling Art Deco earrings given to Queen Elizabeth on her wedding day.
Regé-Jean Page. Source: Getty
But Regé-Jean Page brought personality to his all-black tonal Canali tuxedo adding a custom diamond dragonfly brooch by Hirsh London
Alan Cumming. Source: Getty
Alan Cumming also made a case for the brooch in place of a tie, wearing a diamond sunburst by British jeweler Atlas Carré, while sending a message of solidarity with his pink, blue and white hair curls, representing the colors of the trans flag.
Tracee Ellis Ross at the 2019 Met Gala. Source: Getty
Met Gala Dress Code a Work of Art
Art and fashion have long been intertwined, and their shared creative expression will take center stage at this year's Met Gala, whose dress code was announced Monday.
The May 4 event will celebrate the opening of the 2026 Costume Institute exhibition, Costume Art, which explores how the dressed body appears throughout The Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection by presenting artworks dating back to prehistory, juxtaposed with 200 fashion garments and accessories.
The dress code, Fashion Is Art, is perhaps the most ambiguous to date, allowing for virtually anything that's wearable and gorgeous. Perhaps that's a good thing, sparing us from the Halloween costume party that the Met red carpet has sometimes become.
It was also announced Monday that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are not only sponsoring the event but also co-chairing it, alongside Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and others—making the couple's appearance at Paris Couture Week all the more logical.
Meanwhile, coming off the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics and at the start of Milan Fashion Week, Vogue global editorial director Anna Wintour and friends announced the location for the upcoming Vogue World: Milan show. It will be held Sept. 22 at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, marking the opening day of next season's fashion week and, no doubt, a celebration of Italian style.
One of the world's oldest shopping arcades, completed in 1877, the picturesque landmark features a striking glass dome that's a perennial photo op. It is also home to the first-ever Prada store, opened in 1913, as well as numerous other fashion boutiques. In a case of art imitating life, the historic space features prominently in the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2, with Miranda Priestley finding herself eerily alone in the center of it all.
Yvonne Wells, Marilyn Monroe, 2001. Source: Courtesy of the artist and Fort Gansevoort, N.Y.
What to Expect at Frieze L.A.
Meanwhile, in L.A., there is already so much incredible art to see, from Wolfgang Tillmans at Regen Projects, Sarah Sze at Gagosian, Takashi Murakami at Perrotin, and the Eileen Norris Collection at Hauser & Wirth, to Monuments at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Robert Therrien: This is a Story at The Broad, and What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem at Variety Arts Theatre in DTLA.
And now Frieze LA is taking over the Santa Monica Airport from Feb. 26 to March 1, with 100 galleries from 17 countries—and its own fashion moments, not least of which is the off-the-charts street style to be enjoyed at the fair.
This year, L.A. fashion brand Frame has come on as a new Frieze sponsor, hosting 50 friends of the brand for the VIP preview day, who are enjoying curator tours and custom Frieze Frame baseball caps created for the group. Brand CEO Silvia Merati and other execs were also walking the aisles scouting L.A. artists for future collaborations.
Frame joins longtime supporter Stone Island. The Italian luxury menswear label is collaborating with Houston-based artist Jamal Cyrus to design the official Frieze staff uniform and a limited-edition T-shirt featuring a textured digital print of his work, available at the fair and at Stone Island’s La Brea store.
I went to a media preview for the fair last week, where Christine Messineo, Frieze's Director of Americas, noted that many galleries will be celebrating the greats who established the L.A. art scene as "a hub for conceptual, photographic and politically engaged art, with practices engaging urgently with migration, identity, ecology and care." Expect lots of big names, from James Turrell to Alex Israel.
I'm especially looking forward to seeing L.A. icon Betye Saar's Altered Polaroids, sketchbooks, and archival materials, as well as figurative quilts by 86-year-old Alabama artist Yvonne Wells, whose work reflects Southern identity and iconic figures like Dolly Parton, Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe. Up-and-comer Sharif Farrag's trippy ceramics are on my list, as are Marley Freeman's paintings inspired by her childhood spent surrounded by textiles at her family's L.A. business Textile Artifacts.
Polly Borland BOD. Source: Courtesy of the Artist and UAP Urban Art Projects.
There are also eight intriguing, free public art installations by L.A. artists being produced through Frieze Projects and the Art Production Fund. Grouped under the theme Body & Soul, the works speak to the current social climate.
Pictured above, at the Santa Monica Airport Park community garden, BOD, multimedia artist Polly Borland's seven-foot soft sculpture questions ideals of beauty, confronting the perfectly primped and plumped bodies that are L.A.'s stock-in-trade.
Borland is a fascinating character, an Australian editorial and fine arts photographer who documented the punk and fashion scenes before becoming known for her celebrity portraiture of Nick Cave, Queen Elizabeth II, Jennifer Coolidge, and more. She
collaborated with Gwendoline Christie on the 2018 photo series and book Bunny which turned the idea of the pinup on its head, and used her own body like Play-Doh in the 2023 series Nudie and Blobs.
Her sculptural technique involves wrapping and cocooning a live model in giant stocking tubes with stuffing, resulting in her organic, sculptural bodies of work. "It's quite restrictive, with a lot of sensory deprivation," she told me recently of the experience, which is its own kind of commentary on being a prisoner of one's looks. "I like things to be more challenging than just beautiful."
Frieze L.A., Feb. 26 to March 1, Santa Monica Airport, 3027 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, frieze.com. Advance tickets required.
