Hunter Schafer looked so good last night, she deserved to be in a museum. Specifically, in the Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Galleries on the 5th floor of the Museum of Modern Art somewhere near Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The actress showed up to the GQ Global Creativity Awards in New York City in an ethereal hand-painted gown by Marni. She also debuted a new strawberry blonde hair shade on the red carpet for extra emphasis.
The muted yellow, blue, and charcoal brushstrokes were painted directly onto the dress’s silk duchess material. Adding a bit of a human touch via bush stroke has been a recent favorite of Marni creative director Francesco Risso. Tracee Ellis Ross also recently stunned in her own hand-painted Marni gown, and Erykah Badu also showed up at the GQ event in a hand-painted leather Marni tench. It figures that Risso, alongside Schafer, was one of the night’s honorees.
Schafer’s dress came in a classic silhouette: a deep V neckline with slits up the front and back of the skirt. We’d be remiss not to point out that she was also wearing hand-painted pumps to match. Her hair also seems to have undergone some sort of paint job—it was almost fiery red on the step-and-repeat, but looked a bit blonder under different lighting.
Held at WSA (New York’s hottest office space), the night also brought out Michaela Coel, Emily Bode, Dev Hynes, and Mickalene Thomas.
Schafer, naturally, was one of the guests of honor after appearing on the magazine’s recent cover. Although she is the first trans woman to appear on the cover of American GQ, she revealed in the profile that she doesn’t want to be boiled down to just her identity. “I worked so hard to get to where I am, past these really hard points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on,” she said. Adding, “It’s a privilege, but it’s been very intentional…I’ve gotten offered tons of trans roles, and I just don’t want to do it.”
Schafer’s career isn’t suffering. She’s set to appear in Yorgos Lanthimos’s upcoming Kind of Kindess alongside Emily Stone, and will headline the film Mother Mary alongside Coel and Anne Hathaway. There’s also the third season of Euphoria on the horizon, though the future of the series seems somewhat up in the air. The show’s delays mean Schafer would have time to actually sit in the MoMA if she so chose. But then again, maybe we’d rather see her in more film projects—and more red carpets.