Madonna will open the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, Sept. 27, marking her first performance at the ceremony in 23 years.
The 68-year-old “Vogue” singer heads into the night as the most-nominated artist with 11 nods, including Video of the Year for “Confessions II – The Film” and Song of the Year for “Bring Your Love,” featuring Sabrina Carpenter. She’ll be joined by “special guests,” with Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter rumored to appear alongside her.
Few artists have shaped the VMAs like Madonna, whose fashion choices at MTV’s big night have traced her evolution from provocative newcomer to established icon. Her impact began at the inaugural 1984 ceremony at Radio City Music Hall, where she climbed down a 17-foot wedding cake to perform “Like a Virgin.” Styled by Maripol, she wore a sheer white lace tulle bustier and skirt, a bridal veil and her scandalizing “Boy Toy” belt. After a lost heel sent her diving, her dress flipped up, and “my manager told me my career was over with,” she told Jimmy Fallon in 2022. The moment instead helped launch her into the pop stratosphere.
Madonna brought back the wedding cake concept in 2003 for a twist on that performance, this time playing groom to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera’s brides. She wore a tailcoat and top hat over a black tank with a corseted waist, trousers and mesh arm sleeves.
The choreographer behind her 1990 “Vogue” performance, Vincent Paterson, who co-directed her Blond Ambition World Tour, drew a deliberate historical parallel for that year’s show. “All of a sudden the idea popped into my head that voguing was not that much different than the court gestures of Marie Antoinette’s court,” he told ANALOGr in 2022. Madonna performed the hit in 18th-century finery: an ivory gown with corset, hip-widening panniers, ribbons and bows, topped by a tall blond wig adorned with white feathers. Glenn Close had first worn the period costume as the scheming Marquise de Merteuil in the 1988 film “Dangerous Liaisons.”
Madonna opened the 1993 show with “Bye Bye Baby” in full menswear: a tuxedo with tails, crisp white shirt, cummerbund and tie, finished with a black top hat. The look previewed her Girlie Show World Tour, which launched that fall.
She embraced flapper glamour in a pale seafoam Atelier Versace haute couture minidress with crystal-studded bodice and flouncy skirt, plus silver strappy sandals. Platinum blond finger waves and smoky dark eyes completed the look.
For a Tom Ford-era Gucci moment, she wore a blue satin shirt unbuttoned over a black bra, with black trousers and a voluminous blowout by Garren. “She [was inspired by] a picture of Catherine Deneuve walking through the lobby with her hair pulled up,” the hairstylist said Style.
The 1997 ceremony found Madonna in more somber attire: buttoned-up menswear with shirt and tie under a black coat, a pencil skirt and gold pendant necklace. She used her stage time to honor Princess Diana, who had died that weekend.
Her 1998 “Shanti/Ashtangi” performance paired a black silk dress with gold jewelry, henna-painted hands and a Vaishnava tilak forehead marking. She later collected her first Video of the Year Moonman in Alexander McQueen: a sequin top and lipstick-red python trousers from his fall 1998 “Joan” collection.
Madonna went minimalist for another appearance in a black button-down and trousers from Saint Laurent’s menswear collection by Hedi Slimane. The pared-back look contrasted with drag queens who took the Metropolitan Opera House stage in re-creations of her past video looks.
Fresh off a 60th birthday trip to Morocco, she wore an Amazigh-inspired ensemble: a spiked silver headpiece, layers of traditional jewelry and a printed robe over a long black dress.
Opening MTV’s 40th anniversary show, Madonna shrugged off a Burberry trench to reveal a dominatrix-worthy look: an Atsuko Kudo crop jacket, latex bra and corset, a Moschino leather apron, fishnets and Christian Louboutin pumps.
“And they said we wouldn’t last. But we’re still here, motherf–kers,” she told the crowd.
Madonna’s 2026 return continues a legacy of style risks that began when she scandalized the inaugural VMAs audience and redefined what pop performance could look like on television.
The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards air live from UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.