Colman Domingo, Teyana Taylor, Janelle Monáe and more brought shape, texture and personality to a carpet that could have played it safe.
The Academy Museum Gala has become Hollywood’s unofficial opening act for awards season, which means the clothes have a job to do. They have to feel formal enough for a museum fundraiser, glamorous enough for a room full of movie stars and memorable enough to survive the morning-after photo galleries.
At the 2026 Academy Museum Gala, plenty of guests looked beautiful. But the stars who made me stop scrolling were the ones who treated the carpet like an opportunity to communicate something—not simply to wear an expensive gown.
For me, those moments came from Colman Domingo, Teyana Taylor, Janelle Monáe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Tracee Ellis Ross and Whitney Peak. Their looks did not share one silhouette, designer or mood. What connected them was conviction. Each outfit gave you a shape to remember, a surface you wanted to examine or a styling decision that felt personal.
The sixth annual gala took place in Los Angeles on October 17 and raised money for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. This year’s honorees included filmmaker John Carpenter, Charlize Theron and Colman Domingo, who received the Vantage Award. That context matters because Domingo did more than arrive well dressed. He dressed like someone being celebrated.
Colman Domingo Made the Honor Feel Like an Occasion
Photo Credit:@colmandomingo
Domingo wore custom Valentino with Boucheron jewelry: a black sequined jacket left open over a fluid silk shirt, a satin cummerbund and flared trousers. On paper, a black suit at a Hollywood gala sounds predictable. On him, the proportion changed everything.
The flare gave the trousers movement. The open shirt relaxed the formality. The sequins caught the light without turning the outfit into a costume. It had a little 1970s glamour, but the styling never felt like a literal throwback.
This is what Domingo consistently understands about menswear. Formal dressing does not have to mean shrinking your personality until you disappear into a tuxedo. A familiar foundation can still feel expressive when the cut, texture and attitude are specific. His look honored the room while still belonging completely to him.
Teyana Taylor Wore the Most Debatable Look—and That Is Why It Mattered
Photo Credit:@kukukuba
Teyana Taylor arrived in Schiaparelli Fall 2026 couture by Daniel Roseberry, wearing a sculpted, glazed bodice over a dark skirt. The molded torso was impossible to ignore. It turned the body into part garment, part sculpture, which makes sense for a gala held at a museum.
I understand why this look will divide people. Fashion has leaned heavily on molded breastplates and anatomical bodices, especially after a year full of “fashion as art” conversations. The idea itself no longer feels completely new, and the rigid paneling does not move as naturally as the woman wearing it.
Still, Taylor gave the look the confidence it needed. Her cropped mullet-pixie kept the styling sharp, and the dark lower half allowed the bodice to remain the focus. I would rather see a look that gives me something to argue with than another safe column gown I forget five minutes later.
That does not make every risk successful. It means the risk had a point.
Janelle Monáe Gave Us the Fantasy the Night Needed
Janelle Monáe’s Robert Wun gown was the clearest example of fashion as transformation. The blue-to-black ombré design turned Monáe into a butterfly, with approximately 800,000 sequins arranged like scales across the gown. According to coverage of the look, the hand embroidery took nearly a year to complete.
What made it work was the control. A butterfly gown could become sweet or overly literal very quickly. Here, the darker palette, sharp color transition and sheer amount of handwork gave it depth. The dress read as a creature emerging from shadow rather than a costume built around an obvious theme.
Monáe has spent years building a visual language through black and white tailoring, surreal accessories and character-driven red-carpet dressing. This gown expanded that language without erasing it. The best celebrity style moments do exactly that: they surprise you while still making sense for the person wearing them.
Jodie Turner-Smith Chose Commitment Over Easy Glamour
Photo Credit: @masonrosephoto
Jodie Turner-Smith wore a Mugler Spring 2027 look styled by Law Roach: a lavender-and-brown zebra-print peplum jacket and pencil skirt, matching gloves and a sculptural horned headpiece that partially covered her eyes.
There was a lot happening, but none of it felt accidental. The narrow skirt balanced the architecture at the waist. The gloves extended the print instead of interrupting it. Even the white pointed pumps created a clean break beneath all that pattern.
The headpiece is the part people will either love or reject. It limits the face, which is usually the center of a red-carpet image. But that obstruction is also what gave the look its authority. Turner-Smith was not merely wearing a fitted animal-print suit. She was presenting a complete Mugler character.
Tracee Ellis Ross Proved Color Can Be the Whole Argument
Tracee Ellis Ross wore a vibrant orange Balenciaga Spring 2027 dress with geometric fringe. The silhouette was soft and loose, but the color and movement kept it from reading as simple.
This was one of the most recognizably Tracee looks of the night. She has never needed a fitted waist or a conventional “flattering” shape to make fashion feel joyful. She understands how volume changes the way a garment moves and how a saturated color can do the work that embellishment usually does.
It also showed why the right celebrity-designer pairing matters. The dress could overwhelm someone who approached it timidly. Ross carried it with ease, allowing the fringe, shape and orange tone to feel playful rather than heavy.
Whitney Peak Put a Black Woman Designer in the Conversation
Whitney Peak wore Diotima by Rachel Scott from the Spring 2027 collection, styled by Karla Welch. Against a carpet dominated by globally established luxury houses, the choice mattered.
Diotima’s work is known for bringing handcraft, texture and a distinctly Caribbean point of view into modern fashion. Peak’s look added surface and movement to the carpet without relying on the familiar formula of a strapless satin gown and diamonds.
This is also where red-carpet coverage can do better. We often spend so much time discussing the celebrity that the designer becomes a parenthetical detail. Seeing a young actor in Rachel Scott’s work places a Black woman designer inside one of Hollywood’s most photographed rooms—and gives audiences another name to remember.
Why These Looks Stayed With Me
What connected the best looks at the Academy Museum Gala 2026 was not perfection. It was point of view.
Domingo showed how texture and proportion can make black tailoring feel alive. Taylor chose a difficult couture idea and committed to it. Monáe turned craftsmanship into fantasy. Turner-Smith allowed styling to create a full character. Ross trusted color and movement. Peak used her visibility to put Diotima in front of a much larger audience.
That is why these outfits felt more exciting than simply being “best dressed.” They reminded me that red-carpet fashion works when the clothes reveal something about the wearer—or give the wearer enough room to invent someone new for the night.
The Academy Museum Gala may be developing a reputation as Los Angeles’s answer to the Met Gala, but it does not need to imitate the Met to matter. Its strength is the overlap between film, image-making and fashion. The guests who understood that relationship gave us more than pretty dresses. They gave us characters, arguments and images worth returning to.
And honestly, that is all I want from a red carpet: not universal agreement, but enough fashion to make the conversation worth having.
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