Singaporean designer Grace Ling makes Met Gala debut with custom Charles & Keith heels and 3D-printed piece

Among the guests at this year’s Met Gala, held in New York City on Monday (May 4), was Singaporean fashion designer Grace Ling. 

The 29-year-old, who is based in New York and was named on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2022, attended wearing a sculptural look of her own design, a 3D-printed bodice made from aero-aluminium and finished in chrome. The look is in line with this year's theme, Costume Art, which aims to showcase the intersection of fashion, the body, and fine art, accompanied by the dress code, Fashion is Art. 

In a video detailing her outfit, Ling said the piece was crafted using advanced fabrication techniques, reflecting her focus on merging fashion and technology. “We want to push technology in couture,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

In an interview with the style magazine Fashionista, she said the outfit took about three weeks to produce, significantly shorter than the three to six months typically required for her couture.

“I was going to be really chill about it and probably just wear something that I already had on the runway. But (my team and I) just started ideating, and then we spiralled and made a whole dress,” she said, chuckling. 

“It was absolutely insane. We were flying people to go pick it up because DHL would not make it in time."

Her look featured thorn-like structures inspired by Salvador Dali’s 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory – housed at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art – and was paired with custom shoes by Singapore's homegrown label Charles & Keith.

In a video about the collaboration, Ling said working with the brand was meaningful.

“Growing up, my parents would save money to buy me shoes from Charles & Keith. To have them make me custom shoes for the Met Gala is really a full-circle moment,” she said.

Born in Singapore, Ling studied fashion design at Parsons School of Design in New York and Central Saint Martins in London. She has also worked with fashion houses, including Thom Browne and The Row. Ling has also styled and worked with various celebrities, including the Kardashians, Jenna Ortega, Jennifer Lopez, and Katseye. 

She also has a permanent studio and flagship store located in New York City that opened in February 2025, serving as her creative studio, a showroom for couture clients, and a retail space for her 3D-printed fashion pieces. 

Before focusing on fashion, Ling trained in sculpture and performance art, and also appeared briefly in the film Crazy Rich Asians.

According to US media reports, tickets for this year's Met Gala, organised by fashion magazine Vogue, cost about US$100,000 each, with tables starting from around US$350,000. This is an increase from roughly US$75,000 per ticket in 2025. Ling attended the event as a guest of Google and was seated at a table hosted by Stephanie Horton, the company’s senior director of global consumer marketing.

Funds raised at the Met Gala go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, providing funding for exhibitions, acquisitions and operations. The 2026 event raised US$42 million.

This year's event has also drawn criticism over the involvement of billionaires Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos as honorary chairs. Some commentators and social media users raised concerns about corporate influence on the gala, with calls for boycotts circulating online.