Pregnant Katy Perry shares Met Gala 2020 Jean Paul Gaultier corset

Katy Perry has shared a sneak peek at ‘what would have been’ her Met Gala 2020 costume.

The 35-year-old star – who is expecting her first child with fiancé Orlando Bloom – revealed on Monday night that she was due to wear a stunning Jean Paul Gaultier corset, highlighting her baby bump on the red carpet.

The beautifully crafted, blush pink look is an homage to the designer’s iconic cone bra, famously worn by his muse Madonna during her Blonde Ambition tour in 1990.

Gaultier originally created the look in 1983, launching the trend of wearing underwear as outerwear.

The theme of this year’s Met Gala was set to be About Time: Fashion and Duration – and Katy’s look would certainly have been a timeless testament to the French designer’s legacy.

Sharing a picture of the garment on a mannequin wearing a faux baby bump, Katy wrote: ‘what would have been… #TheMetBall2020’.

Despite Anna Wintour’s annual ball – which is known as ‘fashion’s biggest night out’ – being put on hold indefinitely in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, celebrities are paying homage to the first Monday of May.

This year’s Met Gala was postponed ‘indefinitely’ in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the glitzy event is held every year, revealed all events had been called off in an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The news came just days after the museum announced it would close its doors ‘until further notice’ after two of its employees were found to be suffering from symptoms associated with the disease.

This is the first time that the event – for which tickets can cost up to $35,000 a person – has been called off in the 22 years that Vogue editor-in-chief Wintour has chaired it, a job that she took on back in 1995 when she made her debut as the hostess of the star-studded party.

Since then, the event has become a must-attend for Hollywood’s most prominent and glamorous stars, with A-listers going above and beyond to embrace each year’s fashion-focused theme, while also showcasing their own style credentials on the red carpet.

Indeed, over the years, the outfits that have made their way up the famous steps to the museum have become all the more bizarre and over-the-top, with stars like Katy, Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, and Rihanna pulling out all the stops to make a lasting impression.

While last year’s theme – Camp: Notes on Fashion – saw Katy turning up dresses as a chandelier, while Gaga did a full costume change in front of photographers, this year’s theme, About Time: Fashion and Duration, was set to be even more flamboyant.

And not only that, it was reported earlier this month that Meghan Markle was set to make her Met Gala debut at this year’s event, with sources revealing to The Sun that the former royal was planning to attend alongside her close friend, British Vogue editor Edward Enninful.

This year’s Met Gala was also due to be the first time actress Meryl Streep was going to attend; despite portraying a character based on Anna Wintour in the popular movie The Devil Wears Prada, the Oscar winner had never actually been a guest at the star-studded party.

Her debut as a co-chair would have also been her first time attending the party – which was due to celebrate an exhibition around the theme, About Time: Fashion and Duration, which would have featured 160 pieces of women’s fashion from the last 150 years.

When speaking to The New York Times, Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, explained the inspiration behind the new exhibit and theme.

‘I wanted to do an exhibition focused on the collection, but not a traditional masterworks exhibition,’ he said. ‘Something that connects to the zeitgeist, and what people are talking about now.’