A Red Carpet Built Around the Shoe
At the 2026 LACMA Gala, Italian model Vittoria Ceretti stepped onto the red carpet in an off-the-shoulder Gucci gown paired with pointed-toe pumps by Giuseppe Zanotti – a combination that put footwear at the center of an otherwise stripped-back, classical look.
Why the Zanotti Pump Worked Here
The pointed-toe silhouette has had an unusually long run on red carpets and editorial shoots alike, and Ceretti’s choice of Giuseppe Zanotti reinforces why the Italian brand keeps showing up at high-profile events. Zanotti’s pumps are engineered with a heel pitch and toe elongation that photograph cleanly under event lighting – sharp lines, no visual clutter, nothing competing with the gown above. For a model who built her career on disciplined, editorial restraint, that logic tracks.
The off-the-shoulder construction of the Gucci gown shifted visual weight entirely to the lower half of the look. With bare shoulders and a clean neckline, the eye travels down. That makes the shoe selection load-bearing in a way it simply wouldn’t be on a more embellished or heavily structured dress. Ceretti and her styling team clearly understood this – the pointed toe draws a line, creates length, and closes the look rather than leaving it open.
Giuseppe Zanotti has spent years positioning the brand at exactly this intersection: dressy enough for formal occasions, structured enough for editorial, recognizable without being loud. The pumps Ceretti wore carry that balance. They are not statement shoes in the way that a sculptural heel or platform would be – they are finishers, pieces that complete a look rather than redirect it. On someone with Ceretti’s proportions and presence, that restraint reads as confidence.
The color and material details of the specific pump haven’t been confirmed beyond what’s visible on the red carpet, but the silhouette alone – pointed toe, clean vamp, heel that reads as mid-to-high – places them squarely in Zanotti’s formal pump category, the kind the brand has refined across multiple seasons without dramatically reinventing. That consistency is part of the appeal for stylists working with talent at Ceretti’s level.
Ceretti, Gucci, and the Discipline of Doing Less
Vittoria Ceretti’s relationship with Gucci is well-established. The Italian model has worked closely with the house across campaigns and runway appearances, making the LACMA gown choice feel like continuity rather than a one-off. What’s worth noting is how the styling here resists the temptation to layer – no bold jewelry stacked against the neckline, no competing accessories pulling focus. The gown and the shoe carry the full weight of the look between them.
That approach is harder to execute than it appears. A single misstep in proportion – a heel that’s too low, a toe shape that’s too round, a pump that disappears against the dress – and the entire construction collapses into something that just looks underdressed. The pointed-toe Zanotti pumps prevent that by maintaining visual tension from the hemline down. They give the eye somewhere to land.
The LACMA Gala draws a particular kind of red carpet dressing – art-world adjacent, fashion-literate, less reliant on the volume and spectacle that dominates entertainment industry events. Ceretti’s look fits that context. The Gucci gown signals house loyalty and European formality; the Zanotti pumps signal familiarity with how Italian luxury footwear functions as a finishing tool rather than a focal point. Both choices are fluent in the same visual language.
It’s also worth noting what wasn’t on her feet. At an event where embellished sandals, metallic platforms, and architectural heels show up with regularity, a clean pointed-toe pump is a deliberate edit. Ceretti opted out of the more maximalist directions available to her, and the result is a look that will photograph cleanly years from now without reading as dated to a specific trend cycle.
Giuseppe Zanotti, for its part, benefits from exactly this kind of placement. A model of Ceretti’s profile wearing your pumps – not to a brand-sponsored event, but as a genuine styling choice at a major cultural gala – is the kind of visibility that reinforces a house’s position in the formal footwear market without requiring a campaign budget.
What This Moment Says About Formal Footwear Right Now
The pointed-toe pump’s staying power on red carpets comes down to function as much as aesthetics. It elongates, it photographs well, it pairs with floor-length and midi hemlines without complicating either, and it carries enough historical formality to feel appropriate without demanding attention. Brands like Giuseppe Zanotti – and competitors like Jimmy Choo, whose Vanessa pump has appeared on its own share of red carpets – have understood for years that the formal pump category rewards refinement over reinvention.
What Ceretti’s LACMA appearance crystallizes is a particular kind of red carpet intelligence – where the shoe isn’t fighting for attention but is doing the structural work that holds a minimal look together. The question is whether the broader market, which keeps cycling through chunky soles and platform revivals, leaves enough room for this kind of discipline to stay visible. At an Italian model wearing Italian footwear to an art gala in Los Angeles, the case is being made quietly and without negotiation.
