What to Know
In case one has forgotten, the whole point of walking a red carpet is to show off what you’re wearing … and sometimes what you’re not. Which brings us to Chappell Roan at Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
The day after the Missouri-born superstar made heads explode on the red carpet in L.A., people were still talking about her custom topless-and-backless gown held gently in place with nipple rings.
Love it? Hate it? Yes, people did.
Page Six declared it her “her wildest look to date.” Debatable. The Victorian-style get-up by Alexander McQueen — with a neck so high it masked half her face — she wore on the runway at an L.A. fashion show last year was fiercely high fashion.
Roan is anything but shy on the red carpet, especially when she’s yelling at photographers for being disrespectful. When it comes to her fashion, thousands of fans got to see it up close when she performed two sold-out concerts in Kansas City last summer.
For her runway looks, at last year’s Grammys she wore a Jean Paul Gaultier dress inspired by the ballerina paintings of French impressionist Edgar Degas.
Just a few days before the Grammys she looked like a retro nurse dressed in mint green at the premiere of Charli XCX’s movie, “The Moment.”
Her wispy garnet red Grammy gown, a feat of fashion engineering, was a Mugler creation by creative director Miguel Castro Freitas.
Made of sheer silk georgette, Mugler described the gown as a “négligée dress and cape.”
“The dress was a reference to Thierry Mugler’s bold and iconic spring couture 1998 runway show, in which Erica Vanbriel modeled the original nipple piercing dress,” Vogue reported.
Freitas “also recreated the silhouette in his debut spring 2026 collection for the brand, then in a nude fabric embroidered with metallic stars,” wrote Vogue.
The barely there look let Roan showcase body art that included a drawing of a pony on her chest and a large temporary tattoo on her back that looked like a piece of lace.
“I like breaking the mold,” she told E! on the carpet. She covered up for the interview with the gown’s matching cape. She accessorized the look with $65,000 worth of diamonds, rubies and sapphires from Buccellati, according to the Instagram fan account, Chappells Closet.
Roan covered up in a Rodarte dress from the label’s 2007 fall/winter collection when she took the stage to present the Best New Artist award to Olivia Dean, which Roan herself won last year.
Roan was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for her single, “The Subway.” She went home empty-handed.
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Lisa Gutierrez; The Kansas City Star; (TNS) | ©2026 The Kansas City Star. Visit at kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
