Hailee Steinfeld Wore a Balmain Transformer to the Premiere of Her Transformers Prequel

Amber Heard wore a couture swim cap to the premiere of Aquaman, so it seems only right that Hailee Steinfeld would wear an off-the-runway…Transformer?…to the premiere of Bumblebee.

The 21-year-old actress arrived to the Los Angeles premiere of her new film—a prequel to the Transformers franchise—in a black and white minidress from Balmain’s spring 2019 collection. On paper, that sounds pretty reasonable. Balmain, minidress, yes. But actually, the minidress consists of an optical-illusion white cage contraption with one sleeve over a black underlayer with a cage pattern over it. The contrasting patterns give the impression that Steinfeld’s body has been replaced by a synthetic hollow torso. She paired the look with black pumps and a yellow manicure; two of her nails were also illustrated with the face of the titular Bumblebee, a black and yellow Transformer. (In the film, which takes place in 1987, Steinfeld’s character, Charlie, discovers Bumblebee in a junkyard and befriends him; they soon find themselves on the lam, pursued by John Cena’s character, Jack Burns, a nefarious-seeming government agent.)

Cena opted for a slightly subtler reference to the film—men always get away with doing less—with a yellow and black striped tie. Meanwhile, Angela Bassett wore a red and orange fringed gown, posting an image of the look to her Instagram and asking, “Hey Everybody you good?” Thoughtful. (The film also stars Abby Quinn, of Landline, and Pamela Adlon, of Better Things.)

For the premiere’s afterparty, which doubled as her birthday party (her birthday is December 11, and she got to cut into a Transformers-themed cake with, again, Bumblebee’s face on it), Steinfeld removed her outermost cage, likely increasing her mobility beyond that of a Transformer or other robot.

If Steinfeld needs further inspiration for future premieres of the film, she need look no further than the rest of Rousteing’s collection—silver metal bodices and futuristic elements abound.

Related: Hailee Steinfeld May Star in Idol, Netflix’s Gen Z Retelling of All About Eve