Sarah Jessica Parker attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images)

In typical Sarah Jessica Parker style, the Sex and the City actress stole the show at the 2022 Met Gala. Like always, she came ready with references seeped in fashion history, and tapped the inimitable American designer, Christopher John Rogers, to help bring her vision to life.

The star walked the carpet in a black, gray and ivory patchwork pleated ball ballgown with Swarovski crystal buttons, silk moiré bows, topped off with a custom Philip Treacy headpiece and Fred Leighton jewels.

“I actually found a dress by a seamstress, an extraordinary woman who’s been a close friend and confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln, her name was Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley,” Parker told the Vogue livestream on the red carpet. An African-American dressmaker known for her striped gowns with 1860s bell silhouettes, Keckley’s booming dressmaking business in Washington D.C. made her a significant figure in fashion history.

Sarah Jessica Parker attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images)

“She designed all of Mary Todd Lincoln’s clothes. She’d been born into slavery and bought her way out of slavery and had an enormously accomplished and inspiring and extraordinary life,” Parker said of Keckley. “So, this dress I thought was really exquisite and pretty much fit the period of time of which Andrew Bolton had focused this exhibit. And so, I asked Rogers to be part of it and he’s amazing and he did it.”

Rogers took to Instagram to express his gratitude, writing, “An immense thank you to Sarah Jessica for entrusting this look in me, and to my PHENOMENAL team for diligently and passionately working on this moment for the last two weeks. I love you all tremendously and this wouldn’t have been possible without every single one of you.”

Coming prepared for the white tie event (even more formal than black tie), tonight’s Met Gala celebrates the second installment to last year’s exhibition In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, with In America: An Anthology of Fashion.