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Did you see photos of the inimitable Bad Bunny at the Met Gala? Old Bunny! Or, as one writer described him: Bad Rabbit.
Looking very much like a Diego Velázquez portrait of an aging Madrid nobleman, with a manicured gray beard and mustache, age-spotted hands, and elegant cane, 32-year-old Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio added about 50 well-lived years to his profile. Bad Bunny’s past Met Gala looks have included a backless blazer and a 26-foot flowered train, and a boilersuit paired with a bejeweled bouffant. This year, he wore a classic all-black suit (custom Zara), with—because he’s still Bad Bunny and gender norms must at least be somewhat flouted—an oversized pussy bow around his neck (a reference to designer Charles James’s 1947 gown “Bustle,” which is part of the Costume Institute’s permanent collection). Prosthetics designer (and many time Best Makeup Academy Award nominee) Mike Marino was the artist behind every age spot vein and crease on Bad Bunny's face, neck, and hands. (Marino incidentally also did Heidi Klum’s makeup and prosthetics for this year’s Met, creating both an octogenarian and a Vestal Virgin, two categories of people one is least likely to see on a red carpet.)
Obviously, it was a considered choice, as the Met Costume Institute’s 2026 exhibition focuses on the relationship between fashion and the many forms of the human body. For the exhibition, the museum even created 25 new mannequins to include amongst its usual sylphlike models—there are larger bodies, dwarf bodies, pregnant bodies, bodies with prosthetics, bodies in wheelchairs, and yes the aging bodies rarely seen in the context of fashion. From the exhibition catalog: “Perhaps reflecting our fear of having to face our own mortality, the youth-oriented fashion industry has traditionally ignored the aged body.” Perhaps?
The most fun thing about his costume? He can take it off.
I’m reminded of a video clip I saw not long ago of Isabella Rossellini looking far older than her 73 years while shooting a film in Italy. She remarked that for movie roles, she’s now often made up to appear older than she looks. Why? She’s aging without interventions, which seems to make her vulnerable to add-ons. You want to look natural as you age? Great! We’ll make you look the most natural, we’ll agemaxx you, here, have another 10 years.
It seems we have some confusing feelings about human bodies showing their age. I think it’s fun that Bad Bunny showed up in an old-age costume at the Met Gala last night. But I’d love for him to keep his costume on for a week, so I could watch his response to the inevitable ageism, the slights small and large, likely to confound him as he traveled in his older (young) body. The most fun thing about his costume? He can take it off.
Most Met Gala attendees of course prepared for the big night (and some, for the rest of their lives) by submitting to procedures aiming to keep them youthful, or diminish even the most subtle manifestations of age. With flawless makeup and flattering red carpet lighting, 70-year-old Kris Jenner’s facelift was looking once again like our filtered ideal and everyone’s heartfelt slippage concerns have been allayed. Nicole Kidman, 58, resembled an adolescent Rapunzel, and 43-year-old Anne Hathaway does not appear to have aged a day since the first installment of The Devil Wears Prada premiered in 2006. We can be amused, however, by one of the guests play-acting what it’s like to forswear all of that clock-stopping intervention, pretending that he’s the old person he hopes he will one day be.
