- Rihanna arrived more than 20 minutes after the Met Gala red carpet was scheduled to end.
- But she pulled off one of the boldest looks of the night with a voluminous jacket covered in flowers.
It wouldn't be the Met Gala without a fashionably late appearance by Rihanna.
And, true to form, Rihanna made her dramatic entrance more than 20 minutes after the red carpet was scheduled to end on Monday.
The Fenty Beauty mogul stole the show in one of the boldest looks of the night — a voluminous hooded cape covered in large, white camellias.
She accessorized the look with a pair of white sunglasses, which had some very large fake eyelashes attached to the lenses.
As she walked up the iconic Met steps, Rihanna wore the custom Valentino jacket around her shoulders and revealed she was wearing an elegant white, spaghetti-strap gown underneath.
The bridal-inspired gown, also designed by Valentino, had a drop-waist that showed off Rihanna's baby bump — which she first revealed while performing at the Super Bowl in February — and a 16-foot-long train.
According to a tweet from Valentino, Rihanna's silk faille cape — which the fashion house's creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli "designed especially for her" — consisted of 30 camellias, 500 petals, and 25 leaves.
She walked the red carpet with her partner A$AP Rocky, who sported a pleated Gucci kilt that he wore over a pair of bedazzled blue jeans, as well as a suit jacket and tie.
According to Harper's Bazaar, the ensemble was a tribute to an outfit that Karl Lagerfeld — who was honored at the 2023 Met Gala — wore to close out a Chanel fashion show in 2004.
Before her grand entrance, Rihanna included a few more nods to Lagerfeld's design history as she made her way to the Met.
As she and A$AP Rocky left the Carlyle Hotel, Rihanna was spotted wearing a fur coat Lagerfeld had designed for Fendi's fall 1997 collection, according to Vogue. The coat had originally been worn down the runway by supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Rihanna has long been hailed as the queen of the Met Gala red carpet.
Her last appearance was in 2021, when the Fenty founder wore a couture Balenciaga coatdress for the "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" theme in another fashionably late entrance.
Before that, Rihanna stole the show at the 2018 Met Gala when she dressed as the pope in tribute to the "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" theme.