Jenna Ortega Stuns in a One-of-One Steel-Rod Dress for Klara and the Sun

By Nico Grey · Published Oct 20, 2026, 12:21 PM (BKK)

She plays a robot. So Jenna Ortega showed up dressed in steel. The “Wednesday” star, 24, hit the New York special screening of her new film “Klara and the Sun” at the Crosby Street Hotel on Monday, October 19, in a one-of-a-kind dress by designer Elias Matso, made out of steel rods, Just Jared reports. “This is a one-of-one dress. It’s made out of steel rods. So it’s handmade, human-made, a lot of effort,” she told People. Amy Adams and director Taika Waititi joined her, and the film opens in U.S. theaters this Friday, October 23.

See the look: the official posts

Page Six, Deadline and Complex posted the carpet photos, Deadline caught her with Amy Adams, and the film’s official account posted her arrival.

The steel-rod dress, up close

Here is what the Page Six and Deadline photos show. It is a halter with a deep V neckline. The whole dress is covered in thin vertical rods strung with beads, in silver with stripes of sunshine yellow, pink and pale blue. Below the hips the rods hang loose like fringe over a sheer base, so the hem moves when she walks. She kept everything else quiet: long, sleek dark hair with a middle part, a smoky eye and pointed nude heels.

Jenna gave the designer all the credit. “He is incredible,” she said, per Just Jared. “He’s been holding onto this dress for me, and it’s perfect. And it’s very fitting with the film, so I’m so grateful.” Look at her wording. At a screening for a film about an Artificial Friend, she called the dress “human-made.”

Who made it: Elias Matso, the corset whiz behind Sydney Sweeney’s wet-look dress

Most red-carpet write-ups stopped at the designer’s name. WWD profiled Matso in July. He is a 24-year-old corsetier from Maine who graduated from Florence’s Polimoda fashion school in June. He co-created Christian Cowan’s wet-look dresses, which Sydney Sweeney, Sarah Paulson, Brooks Nader and Chloe Bailey have all worn. WWD also says he worked on custom corsets for Tyla and Cardi B at this year’s BET Awards.

WWD’s description of his graduate collection, “Melt Away With Me,” sounds a lot like Monday’s dress. Matso linked tiny bits of steel boning together with beads. On one look they “trickle more softly from a halter in a sort of bionic take on the wet-look dress.” He called that collection “the most challenging logistical feat I’ve ever attempted in my life.” Jenna’s dress is also a halter of beaded steel. But neither she nor Matso has said it came from that collection, so treat the link as our observation, not a confirmed fact.

Sun, space age, steel: her Klara tour looks so far

New York completes a pattern. At the film’s BFI London Film Festival premiere on October 15, she wore a custom honey-gold Torlowei slip with black lace and a matching lace cap, WWD reported. People caught Florence Pugh accidentally bumping her in the face with a puffy sleeve on that carpet (People). In Rome she wore a 1966 Pierre Cardin “Target” dress, white with a red, yellow and black bullseye that echoes the sun on the film’s poster (InStyle, WWD).

London’s gold and Rome’s bullseye both pointed at the sun in the title, and WWD noted the Cardin’s space-age feel suited a sci-fi film. Monday’s steel dress is the most literal nod yet to the other half of the title: Klara is an Artificial Friend, and this time the dress itself looks a little like a machine.

Why this robot role is a big swing

Jenna told Esquire in August that Klara is the opposite of Wednesday Addams. “It was very exciting for me to play this naive, hopeful, optimistic character who’s very different than the characters that I’ve been playing recently,” she said. She also explained what she loves about the book: “She’s written as a back-of-the-store robot. She’s an old model. She’s not a standout Artificial Friend. Or so you think.”

That is a long way from where many fans met her as a grown-up actress: horror and dark comedy. She played Lorraine, the shy sound recordist, in Ti West’s “X” (2022) opposite Mia Goth, led “Miller’s Girl” (2024) and played Astrid, Winona Ryder’s on-screen daughter, in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Klara asks for the opposite energy: wide-eyed and hopeful.

Want to see it? Klara and the Sun release dates

Sony Pictures is releasing “Klara and the Sun” only in theaters on Friday, October 23 in the U.S., and the UK date is the same day. According to The Numbers, it is PG-13 and runs 116 minutes, and it opens a little earlier in France (October 21) and in Italy, Australia, Mexico and New Zealand (October 22). Waititi wrote the script with Dahvi Waller from Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel. Amy Adams, Aran Murphy, Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne co-star.

FAQ

What was Jenna Ortega’s Klara and the Sun dress made of?

Steel rods. Jenna told People it was a handmade, one-of-one dress by Elias Matso, who had been holding onto it for her. In the photos the rods are strung with silver, yellow, pink and blue beads and hang loose as fringe below the hips.

Who is Elias Matso?

A 24-year-old corsetier from Maine who graduated from Polimoda in Florence in June 2026, according to WWD. He co-created Christian Cowan’s wet-look dresses worn by Sydney Sweeney and Sarah Paulson, and his graduate collection used beaded steel boning.

When does Klara and the Sun come out?

Friday, October 23, 2026, only in theaters in the U.S. and the UK, from Sony Pictures. It opens October 21 in France and October 22 in Italy, Australia, Mexico and New Zealand.

Who does Jenna Ortega play in Klara and the Sun?

Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend: a robot companion who waits in a store to be chosen and then joins a grieving family. Amy Adams plays the mother of that family.

What do you think? Steel rods for a robot role: Jenna’s best Klara look yet, or does the 1966 Cardin bullseye still win? Tell us on X @celeb124.

Photos: Jenna Ortega at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, 2024 (card and story graphic) by Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jenna Ortega at Venice 2024 (full length) by Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jenna Ortega at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival by Colleen Sturtevant, CC BY 4.0; Amy Adams at TIFF 2024 by Sara Komatsu, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons). Archive photos, not from the events described.

Sources

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