Never one to make a timid entrance, Madonna made a big statement on the 2026 Met Gala red carpet.
There was the witchy dress, the tumble of raven hair, and the seven ladies-in-waiting carrying her diaphonous lavender cape, a reinterpretation of the 1945 oil painting The Temptation of St. Anthony, by one of the singer’s favorite artists, the British-Mexican Surrealist Leonora Carrington.
All of this seemingly in service of the dramatic centerpiece: a towering headpiece featuring a skeletal ship dripping in tulle and beads. The hat once belonged to the infamous fashion editor Isabella Blow, and was commissioned by her from fashion’s go-to milliner, Philip Treacy, who says it’s among his favorite creations. “There’s something very exciting about Madonna wearing a ship hat to the Met ball,” Treacy said in an exclusive video. “I think Isabella would be thrilled,” he added. “Isabella is going to The Met, in spirit, on Madonna’s head.”
Philip Treacy, left, first designed the shipwreck hat for fashion editor Isabella Blow.
Ricardo Gomes
The ship hat is no mere arbitrary accessory. It’s actually a part of the Carrington piece, as is the French horn that the Material Girl carried with her across the Met Museum steps. The painting, she says, is an artistic rendering of Anthony the Great, the patron saint of lost items, miracles, and travelers. “His whole story is about the struggle of the soul,” the singer said. “And Leonora, she saw it as the struggle of women, and feminine divinity.”
