Some red carpet appearances are about the outfit. Others are about the couple. Dua Lipa and Callum Turner managed to make Sunday night’s 2026 Vanity Fair Oscars party in Beverly Hills about both simultaneously, arriving at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in a matching energy of easy, genuine affection that photographers could not stop chasing. The two were captured laughing together, leaning in close, and wrapping around each other with the kind of unselfconscious chemistry that tends to generate its own coverage entirely separate from what anyone is wearing. For Lipa, who has established herself as one of the most photographed women at any event she attends, having that personal warmth visible alongside the fashion was a particularly effective combination.
The fashion itself was not short on ambition. Lipa, 30, arrived in a dramatic black Schiaparelli gown trimmed with gold fringe, a pairing of house severity with decorative exuberance that felt entirely consistent with Schiaparelli’s recent direction. The look was elevated with gold pointed heels and completed with sparkling Bvlgari jewelry, the whole ensemble landing somewhere between avant-garde and classically glamorous. Turner, 36, matched the moment in a sharp black suit with a crisp grey shirt and black tie, his arm around Lipa as they worked through the photographic gauntlet outside the venue. The symmetry of their looks, her gold details echoing his polished restraint, gave the couple a visual coherence that felt considered rather than coordinated.
The night did not stop there for Lipa. She later changed into a plunging blue dress for Elton John’s Oscars viewing party, pairing it with strappy silver heels in a switch that demonstrated her characteristic willingness to treat a single awards season evening as an opportunity for more than one fashion statement. The blue look was looser and more playful in energy, leaning into a different kind of glamour from the architectural drama of the Schiaparelli. Where some celebrities approach the multi-event awards night with a single defined look, Lipa treats the whole evening as a runway with several distinct acts.
Dua Lipa at the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party
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The party itself was set against the backdrop of the 98th Academy Awards, which closed out an awards season that delivered some genuine surprises. ‘One Battle After Another,’ directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, took home Best Picture and dominated with six wins overall, with Teyana Taylor and the cast and crew accepting the top prize alongside the director. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor for ‘Sinners,’ a result that many in the industry described as a meaningful recognition of a performance that had drawn sustained critical admiration throughout the season. Jessie Buckley claimed Best Actress for her work in ‘Hamnet,’ adding to a night that rewarded several projects outside the typical awards-season center of gravity.
For Lipa, the Vanity Fair party represents more than just a fashion opportunity. She has been building a profile in entertainment that extends considerably beyond music, and her presence at the industry’s most high-profile post-ceremony gathering signals an ongoing navigation of the space between pop superstardom and broader cultural prestige. Her relationship with Turner, a British actor best known for his roles in ‘The Alienist’ and the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films, has drawn significant public interest since the couple went public, and Sunday night confirmed that they are willing to lean into that interest rather than manage it from a distance. Entertainment Tonight described their exchange at the party as a moment that had the crowd smiling, noting that a playful kiss from Turner was all it took to light up Lipa’s expression on camera.
Schiaparelli, the house responsible for Lipa’s first look of the evening, was founded by Italian-born designer Elsa Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927 and is perhaps best remembered for its surrealist collaborations with Salvador Dalí in the 1930s, which produced pieces like the iconic lobster dress and shoe hat that still circulate in fashion history courses. The house was relaunched in 2012 after decades of dormancy and has since become one of the most reliably provocative labels on the red carpet, known for its willingness to treat the human body as a canvas for sculptural and conceptual ideas. Bvlgari, whose jewelry Lipa wore, was founded in Rome in 1884 and takes its name and visual identity so directly from ancient Roman and Greek decorative traditions that the brand has been cited in academic papers on the relationship between luxury fashion and classical antiquity. And Dua Lipa was born in London to Albanian parents who had emigrated from Kosovo, making her rise to becoming one of the most globally recognized pop stars of the 2020s a story rooted in a specifically immigrant experience that she has spoken about openly and with evident pride.
What did you think of Dua Lipa’s looks at the Vanity Fair party, and are you a fan of her and Callum as a couple? Share your thoughts in the comments.
