NEW YORK — After hours of prepping and primping Hollywood’s A-list for the 2026 Met Gala, the night’s makeup artists and hairstylists gathered at Mr Chow 57th Street for a celebration of their own.
The 12th annual The Artists Dinner, founded by makeup artist Troy Surratt and hairstylist Nathaniel Hawkins, was hosted this year in partnership with L’Oréal. Bringing together established and emerging artists, the evening honored longtime hairstylist Orlando Pita with its Icon Award.
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“There are those who have to search for and find their calling, and then there are those for whom the calling is so loud, so undeniable, that their path appears before them,” Surratt said as he presented Pita with the award.
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Pita’s hairstyling career has officially spanned 40-plus years, though he jokes that it unofficially began when he was just 14 years old and gave his brother an objectively unfortunate haircut, after which his father forbade him from ever cutting hair again.
Since then, though, Pita has built a formidable career as a hairstylist, working with clients ranging from Madonna to Beyoncé Knowles-Carter to Anne Hathaway, whose soft, Met Gala updo he crafted earlier that day.
“I couldn’t have picked a different life for myself, and I’m so happy that I didn’t,” said Pita, who is Cuban-born and grew up in New Jersey. “Today is really a special gift, because there’s nothing better than being honored by your peers. You all know what it takes to be here and to stay here, and a large part of it is just hanging on and not giving up…and I hope to do a lot more in this industry.”
Other attendees included hairstylist Chuck Amos; makeup artist Sam Fine (who was the 2025 Icon Award honoree); Aika Flores, who was behind “Heated Rivalry” star Hudson Williams’ Black Swan-inspired grooming for the evening; hairstylist Ursula Stephen, makeup artist and founder Fara Homidi, and more.
“This is a group of my friends, but also my contemporaries; we all have the same job, we have the same life experience — it comes in different forms, but we all have had the exact same day,” Hawkins said. “This is the one time a year when we get to come together and just celebrate what we all do for a living, which is special. It’s about everybody here.”
Said Silvia Galfo, president of the L’Oréal Luxe USA division: “Our métier is beauty, and this community of makeup artists and hairstylists is how we create beauty. With their talent and their craft, they push us as a company to move forward and to create new things. It’s an inspirational community of people who are very authentic and true to their passion.”