Vera Wang put a subtly surreal spin on the reemerging opera glove trend to the 2026 BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday, arriving at London’s Royal Festival Hall in a black-and-white look with mitten-finished sleeves.

The bridal designer’s gown came in a bright white fabric with a straight, strapless neckline that hit just below the collarbone. Vertical ruching ran down the front, gathering through the bodice and hips before falling into a narrow skirt that ended in a short train.

Wang added a cropped black bolero with pronounced, rounded shoulders over the ruched gown. She finished it with what looked like opera-length black gloves — though they may have been built into the jacket — giving the look its long-sleeve effect. The black coverage ran past the wrist and covered the hands in a closed, mitten-like shape. She completed the look with her signature black sunglasses and straight platinum-blonde hair.

Wang keeps coming back to BAFTA week with the same black-and-white point of view, usually in her own work. At the 2025 BAFTAs, she wore a Vera Wang two-piece with an upside-down black bandeau top and a high-waisted black-and-white color-block skirt built with a peplum and soft pleating, then finished it off with an oversized leather jacket and dark sunglasses. In 2024, she hit the BAFTA Gala in a draped white hooded gown with detached black sleeves. And just last night at the nominees’ party, she wore a midriff-baring co-ord from her namesake brand that she also accessorized with opera-length gloves — this time in leather, with full fingers.

Opera gloves have been a recurring awards season detail. They showed up across the 2025 Golden Globes red carpet, and by late 2025 and early 2026 they started popping up again in new iterations. At the 2026 Grammy Awards, Tate McRae wore a structured strapless black Balenciaga gown with black leather opera gloves and a diamond necklace. At the 98th Oscars Nominees Luncheon a few days later, Kate Hudson paired a red sleeveless draped Lanvin pre-fall 2026 dress with black leather gloves and two-tone slingback pumps. And at Michael Kors’ fall 2026 runway show earlier in February, Mary J. Blige arrived in head-to-toe brown suede, including knee-high boots and long gloves in the same shade.

Off the carpet, Wang has been focused on expanding access to her bridal designs. In November, she and David’s Bridal launched an archival “White by Vera Wang” capsule of 10 gowns and bridesmaid dresses, reviving early-2010s bestsellers as a limited, made-to-order run ahead of a broader Vera Wang Bride collection that will roll out exclusively at the retailer beginning in spring 2026.