Mariska Hargitay and Daughter Amaya, 15, Arrive at the 2026 Emmy Awards in Coordinated Red Monse Gowns Inspired by a Late Hollywood Icon — Photos

Mariska Hargitay had more than one reason to command attention when she arrived at the 2026 Emmy Awards with her family.

Beside the longtime "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" star was her 15-year-old daughter, Amaya Hermann, whose sparkling red gown closely echoed her mother's.

The matching dresses immediately created a striking mother-daughter moment. But their similarities were only part of the story behind the custom looks.

A Mother-Daughter Red Carpet Moment

Hargitay arrived at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater on Monday, September 14, wearing a floor-length red Monse gown covered in shimmering sequins.

The fitted dress featured a sculpted sweetheart neckline and straps set wide across her shoulders. Below the knee, the silhouette opened into dramatic feather-like fringe and an asymmetrical train that swept along the carpet.

Amaya coordinated with her mother rather than wearing an exact copy. Her Monse dress used the same vivid red color, sparkling fabric, and feathered treatment, but its construction gave the 15-year-old a distinctly different silhouette.

Her gown had ultra-fine straps and a softer scoop neckline. Instead of her mother's structured mermaid shape and floor-sweeping train, Amaya wore a lighter shift-style design with an asymmetrical high-low hem that ended above the ankle.

The differences continued with their shoes. Hargitay wore open-toed red platform stiletto sandals, while Amaya chose pointed-toe red kitten pumps with slender ankle straps. Both kept their accessories minimal, allowing the coordinated gowns to remain the focus.

The mother and daughter were not the only members of the Hermann-Hargitay family at television's biggest night. Hargitay's husband, Peter Hermann, and their sons, August, 20, and Andrew, 14, also joined them.

As Page Six Style reported, Monse confirmed that the matching dresses were not simply a red carpet coincidence. They were an homage to Hargitay's late mother, Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield.

The 70-Year-Old Inspiration Behind the Gowns

The inspiration reached all the way back to 1956, when Mansfield appeared in "The Girl Can't Help It." In the film, Mansfield wore a glittering ruby red gown that provided a clear visual blueprint for the modern Monse designs worn by her daughter and granddaughter seven decades later.

A clip showing Mansfield's memorable costume highlights the connections between the three looks. All three dresses use a bold siren-red palette and light-reflecting embellishments. Mansfield's gown also featured delicate halter straps, an open shoulder line, and a sculpted sweetheart bust.

The 1956 design was very much a product of its era. Its smooth, body-sculpting fabric was decorated with evenly spaced rhinestones and shaped into a rigid, mid-century hourglass silhouette with a tight column skirt. Its back dipped into a deep V supported by a halter at the neck.

Monse's 2026 interpretation retained several recognizable elements but updated them for Hargitay and Amaya. Dense sequins replaced Mansfield's more evenly spaced sparkling embellishments, while feather-like fringe added movement and texture to both newer gowns.

Hargitay's version turned the fitted silhouette into a mermaid-style gown with a sweeping train. Amaya's interpretation took the same fabric, color, and fringe concept and placed them on a shorter, softer dress without a train.

The result linked three generations of the same family through one unmistakable shade of red while giving each gown its own construction. For Hargitay, however, drawing from her mother's image through fashion is not new.

Hargitay Has Revisited Mansfield's Style Before

In 2023, Hargitay recreated one of Mansfield's famous leopard-print looks during a photo shoot for Interview magazine. Another tribute followed in January 2024, although it was far more understated than the sparkling red gowns seen at the Emmys.

During an appearance on "Today," Hargitay wore a black ribbon in her curled, half-up hairstyle with a tuxedo-style outfit. Ribbons were already appearing in the coquette and balletcore trends popular online, but Hargitay explained that her inspiration came from somewhere much closer to home.

She had recently found a childhood photograph of Mansfield wearing bows in her pigtails when she was 8 years old. "Well, can I tell you who my inspo is?" Hargitay said before sharing the photograph.

She continued, "So I just found this photo of my mother when she was 8 years old, and I brought it today." Hargitay pointed out the bows and said the photograph had affected her deeply. She recalled looking at the picture and thinking, "You are my inspiration."

She also credited Savannah Guthrie, who had worn ribbons herself, before offering a playful fashion rule about getting older. "You don't put yourself in a box. You wear a bow, and you rock it baby," Hargitay said.

She then declared, "You know what you do when you're 60? You rock a bow." Guthrie later shared footage of the pair repeating the phrase together. Only a few months later, Mansfield again came to mind because of a striking outfit.

A Sequined Dress Brought Mansfield to Mind Again

At Variety's Power of Women event in New York on May 2, 2024, Hargitay was honored alongside Anitta, Shonda Rhimes, and Amy Schumer. Schumer attended in what Hargitay called a "glorious sequiny pink dress."

According to People, seeing the look immediately reminded Hargitay of Mansfield. "I feel like my mom's here with me," she told Schumer. "Because you're Jayne Mansfield incarnate right now, so thank you for that." She explained that she looks for signs connected to her mother and believed that moment was one of them.

The association between Mansfield, sparkling fashion, and Hargitay would eventually take on a much larger form. By the following year, Hargitay was preparing to tell her mother's story through her first feature-length film as a director.

Hargitay Turned the Camera Toward Her Mother

On April 8, 2025, Hargitay announced "My Mom Jayne," a documentary about Mansfield's life and the daughter's effort to understand the mother she barely knew. HBO described the project as being defined by "strength in vulnerability" and centered on Hargitay embracing the mother she never had the chance to know.

The project was intensely personal. Hargitay was only three when Mansfield died at age 34 in a 1967 car crash. Hargitay and her two older brothers were in the vehicle and survived.

She was later raised by Mickey Hargitay, the Hungarian-born actor and former Mr. Universe who had been married to Mansfield, and her stepmother, Ellen. When announcing the film, Hargitay described it as "a labor of love and longing."

"It's a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I'd never owned, and a reclaiming of my mother's story and my own truth," she said, according to People.

The documentary used intimate interviews, home movies, and never-before-seen photographs as Hargitay examined Mansfield's public image and private life. That meant looking beyond the glamorous persona that had made Mansfield one of the most recognizable Hollywood stars of the 1950s.

Hargitay had spent decades building an identity of her own. Her long-running portrayal of Olivia Benson on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" made her one of television's best-known actresses, while the stories she heard from viewers helped inspire her to establish the Joyful Heart Foundation.

Yet Hargitay had previously kept a distance from much of Mansfield's work.

Seeing Mansfield Beyond the Hollywood Image

While making "My Mom Jayne," Hargitay revisited archival material from her mother's career, including footage from "The Girl Can't Help It" — the same 1956 film that would later inspire the red Monse gowns.

In a June 2025 interview with W Magazine, Hargitay said she had avoided Mansfield's films while growing up. "I never wanted to hear that voice," she said. "It just undid me."

The documentary examined how Mansfield's famous image could overshadow other parts of her life and abilities. Hargitay has noted that her mother played the violin, had five children, loved dogs, and had an IQ of 160.

Archival material also showed Mansfield attempting to demonstrate her musical ability by playing classical violin on a talk show, only to have the host respond with a joke about kissing her.

Hargitay said her mother's public image had placed limits on how people saw her. "She was put in a box," Hargitay told W. "I was just never going to let anyone put me in a box." The film also addressed a family truth Hargitay had kept private for decades.

The Documentary Revealed a Long-Held Family Secret

Hargitay grew up sensing differences between herself and her siblings while rumors about her paternity circulated among Mansfield's followers. In her 20s, she learned that her biological father was Italian singer Nelson Sardelli.

Hargitay publicly addressed that truth in "My Mom Jayne," while making clear the place Mickey Hargitay, who raised her and died in 2006, held in her life. "I've been working on this story my entire life," she told W.

Hargitay included Sardelli and his two daughters in the documentary. She said keeping that connection hidden no longer felt right, particularly as a mother raising three children herself. The process also changed how she examined Mansfield's choices and circumstances.

Hargitay said she reached a point where she could view the people involved in her family history in a more complex way. "After all the pain I went through in my life, I realized everyone did the best they could," she said. "I wasn't abandoned. I wasn't betrayed. It was complicated."

Letters, photographs, and home movies uncovered during production also allowed Hargitay to notice similarities with Mansfield she had not recognized before. At the end of the documentary, Hargitay described what she now saw when looking at her mother: "a powerful woman standing in all her glory, without any artifice or pose."

One detail uncovered in Mansfield's story eventually produced another connection between mother and daughter. Mansfield had dreamed of performing at Carnegie Hall but never fulfilled that ambition. Hargitay later held the premiere of "My Mom Jayne" at Carnegie Hall.

"It's been a gift to be able to do that for her," Hargitay told W. The documentary began streaming on HBO on June 27, 2025.

Mansfield's Influence Had Never Entirely Disappeared

Years before making the documentary, Hargitay had already spoken publicly about how she carried the influence of both Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay. In a 2018 People interview, she discussed how losing Mansfield when she was so young shaped the way she approached grief.

"The way I've lived with loss is to lean into it," she said. She also described Mansfield as much more than the glamorous image preserved in photographs and films.

"My mother was this amazing, beautiful, glamorous sex symbol — but people didn't know that she played the violin and had a 160 IQ and had five kids and loved dogs," Hargitay said. She described Mansfield as ahead of her time and said she believed they shared an appetite for life.

Hargitay also recalled something someone had once told her about remembering her mother: "All you have to do is look in the mirror. She's with me still." She has continued marking Mansfield's life publicly.

On April 19, 2026, which would have been her mother's 93rd birthday, Hargitay shared an image of the Hollywood star. Months later, the family connection returned to the spotlight in a very different setting.

By the time Hargitay and Amaya stepped onto the Emmy red carpet in their matching Monse designs, "My Mom Jayne" had brought Mansfield's life and work back into focus through her daughter's perspective.