Cynthia Erivo’s 2025 Met Gala Manicure Took 2 Days and Was Just as Intentional as Her Show-Stopping Givenchy Look

• Cynthia Erivo shut down the red carpet in a custom Givenchy by Sarah Burton look at the 2025 Met Gala

• She honored the gala’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” theme and the dress code with an elaborate manicure that took two days to create and featured pocket squares to celebrate menswear

• Erivo’s arrival marks her seventh time attending the Met Gala, her first being in 2016, wearing a patchwork floral gown and sporting platinum blonde hair.

Cynthia Erivo has arrived!

The Wicked star brought her wicked style to the Met steps, and thank goodness she did. For fashion’s biggest night, Erivo, 38, wore a show-stopping custom Givenchy by Sarah Burton look.

The Broadway star turned heads in a dramatic ensemble consisting of structured jacket and corseted bodice covered in red floral beading. On the bottom, she wore black bloomers and a massive tulle skirt that allowed Erivo’s legs to poke out the front — revealing her massive thigh tattoo.

She topped off the look with a matching beaded handbag and black knee-high boots adorned with beads.

“Sarah and I sat together and looked at archive pieces and her most recent runway,” Erivo told Vogue. “She and I both saw how both could merge to make something quite special so we put her runway, the archive [looks by] McQueen, and Sarah’s Givenchy looks together, and found something quite magical. Sarah’s brain is unlike any other.”

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The outlet also shared that the ensemvle took 950 hours to make, with the embroidery work requiring over 43,400 Swarovski crystals, and demanding approximately 1,300 hours to achieve by 40 artisans.

Of course, Erivo also made sure her nails were red carpet-worthy. As she was leaving The Mark Hotel, the actress told PEOPLE exclusively about her elaborate, on-theme manicure.

“Well, it’s Superfine, so we have our pocket squares, we have a tie, we have our buttons,” Erivo said. “They were made by wonderful young lady called Mycah Dior. She’s 20 years old. She just turned 20 a couple of days ago.”

The process of creating the manicure was “a progression,” Erivo continued. “We started yesterday to get like the basics and then we did the rest of it this morning and then as we were putting this dress on, she was putting on all of the smaller pieces.”

“They are functional,” she added. “They are acrylic, so they won’t go anywhere.

Last October, Vogue announced that this year’s Met Gala would be co-chaired by Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour, with LeBron James as honorary chair.

Fundraising for The Costume Institute — and with the spotlight on its spring 2025 exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the star-studded event will also have an A-list host committee, including Simone Biles and her husband, Jonathan Owens, Doechii, Regina King, Spike Lee, Angel Reese and Usher.

According to Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton, the museum’s exhibit, which is inspired by guest curator Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, explores “the Black dandy as both a concept and an identity signifier.”

The new exhibit “presents a cultural and historical examination of Black style from the 18th century to the present through an exploration of the concept of dandyism,” according to a post on the museum’s Instagram.

In February, the dress code for the Met Gala was revealed to be “Tailored for You.” Fittingly, it is a nod to the exhibition’s focus on menswear and suiting.

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At last year’s Met Gala — themed “The Garden of Time” — Erivo arrived in a black two-piece ensemble by Thom Brown. The top — a menswear-inspired cropped blazer, complete with a white shirt and black tie — saw a collection of pink rose petals gathered on one shoulder. The skirt featured a long train, in which more rose petals cascaded down the length. Erivo finished the look with silver earrings and rings, baby pink and black nails and a small pink bag.

In 2022, Erivo embraced what’s become a pattern for her — an all-white elegant ensemble. For the “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” theme — the second part to the Met’s American fashion stint — Erivo wore an intricate Louis Vuitton lace gown with a drop waist, boat neck and feather train. She honored historical elements of Black women’s fashion with a tall white head wrap and finished the look with a silver snake bracelet, bold rings, long black nails and a statement gold necklace.

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The year prior, Erivo sported a simpler all-white look, including a crossover ruched bralette and a silky maxi skirt by Moschino, for the theme, “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.” She completed the look with bedazzled stiletto nails, a bold pavé salamander necklace, a silver bracelet, small silver hoops and two large rings.

For the “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” Met Gala in 2018, Erivo arrived in a velvet purple ball gown by Valentino, featuring a full skirt and large cutouts around the bodice. Her jewelry — including stacked earrings, a thin bracelet and a bold septum ring — was by Eva Fehren, Maria Tash and Yeprem, and she rounded out the look by stacking technicolor rhinestones over her eyebrows.

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Opting for another Thom Browne look, Erivo attended the 2017 Met Gala in a form-fitting white gown with a train bustle. Her interpretation of the theme, “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” included masculine and feminine fashion elements, which were essentially divided down the middle; Erivo’s left side saw a straight neckline and spaghetti strap, that gave way to the bustle (and a fuller skirt), whereas her right saw a structured blazer coat inspired by menswear and led to a straight sheath skirt.

Her Met Gala debut came in 2016, and Erivo wore a patchwork floral floorlength dress with a scoop neckline and black linework. Throughout the dress were silve studs, and Erivo accessorized simply with green drop earrings and a black handbag. The theme was “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology,” which aimed to highlight the combination of hand-crafted and machine-made style elements.

Catch all the minute-by-minute fashion updates from the 2025 Met Gala red carpet right here!

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