Nicole Kidman wears a flamenco-inspired Balenciaga dress

Nicole Kidman attends the 2024 Met Gala celebrating “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 6, 2024, in New York.

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Nicole Kidman certainly went back in time in her Balenciaga look at the Met Gala.

Designed by creative director Demna Gvasalia, the Oscar-winning star stepped out in a 1950s-inspired double white silk bustier and full skirt over frayed layers of black silk organza to mimic feathers. The original dress was inspired by the ruffled dresses worn by flamenco dancers, a nod to Balenciaga’s Spanish heritage.

“It was based on a 1951 Balenciaga dress from the Cristóbal era,” Kidman told La La Anthony on the red carpet. “It’s something I saw in (a photo of Richard) Avedon (of Dorian Leigh from Harper’s Bazaar). I asked Demna if he was ready to reinterpret it. He therefore reinterpreted it in the vein of sleeping beauties and dresses, bringing them back to life. So I consider it a “Sleeping Beauty” brought back to life. It’s an honor to be able to bring him back to life.

Styled by Jason Bolden, Kidman completed her ’50s-inspired look with approximately 15-carat Harry Winston diamond earrings and the jeweler’s 6-carat Secret Combination diamond bracelet, both set in platinum.

According to VogueKidman’s dress took 800 hours of embroidery to apply the 3,000 organza feathers, and another 400 hours to create the white bodice and silk skirt pieces.

At last year’s Karl Lagerfeld fundraiser, Kidman paid homage to his iconic Chanel N°5 perfume campaign in a custom dress from the Parisian fashion house adorned with 250 pink feathers and more than 3 000 silver crystals and glitter.

This year’s dress code, “The Garden of Time,” is inspired by JG Ballard’s 1962 short story of the same name, which fits perfectly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s latest exhibition, The Sleeping Beauties: the awakening of fashion, which opens to the public on Friday, May 10. The exhibition curated by Andrew Bolton highlights fragile pieces from the institute’s archives, all seen through the prism of nature. The beautiful book of the exhibition will be released on June 18. Read more about The Hollywood ReporterMet Gala coverage here.