He looked very bubbly.
Olympic freestyle skater Eileen Gu put a winning spin on the 2026 Met Gala’s theme of “Costume Art.”
The 22-year-old model – who won two silvers and a gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in February – wore a stunning short dress by Iris van Herpen, the Dutch designer known for her distinctive “tech-couture” looks that combine high fashion and new technology, on the red carpet on Monday.
“I have 15,000 glass bubbles on me,” Gu told ESPNW in a different outfit. “It took 2,550 hours to make. There’s technology under the hood that makes reality meet art. It’s a game of surrealism, a game of movement, a game of nature, fun, loud.”
She was also wearing see-through heels and, apart from a pair of earrings that partially hid her gorgeous, glamorous beauty, her only accessories were a bunch of bubbles floating up in the air around her.
When asked why sports are an art form by ESPNW, the veteran athlete simply replied, “It’s about self-expression.
Gu first attended the Met Gala in 2021, sporting a short romantic black and white Carolina Herrera dress with black heels and a bright red lip. The following year, she changed into a Louis Vuitton leather mini dress with a plunging neckline, a metal belt and high black leather boots.
Reuters
Although in his early 20s, Gu is the most decorated free skater of all time, earning six medals in six events at the 2022 and 2026 Winter Olympics.
However, Gu has been repeatedly criticized for representing his mother country China in the Olympics, despite growing up in Northern California and majoring in international relations at Stanford University.
Earlier this year, he said he was “beaten up,” robbed and received death threats on campus.
The versatile model is signed by IMG and has appeared in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2025 magazine, represented Louis Vuitton, Victoria’s Secret and Fendi, and graced the covers of the Chinese editions of Cosmopolitan and Vogue.
