PHOTOS: All the fiercest (and queerest!) fashion slays from the 2023 MTV VMAs

For a few short hours on Tuesday night, Newark, New Jersey morphed into the fashion capital of the world for the 2023 MTV VMAs. With New York City in the distance, the biggest names in music and entertainment descended onto the Prudential Center decked out in their rock and roll finery.

Prior to the ceremony, this year saw a slew of queer nominees with artists like Sam Smith, Kim Petras, Saucy Santana, Steve Lacy, and Janelle Monae among the luminaries up for the coveted Moonman statue in a variety of categories.

But in the end, white cis ally queen Taylor Swift wound up the big winner by taking home nine awards, including video, artist and song of the year. Welcome to her world domination era!

Among the LGBTQ+ winners were Ice Spice for Best New Artist, Anitta for Best Latin, Dove Cameron for Video For Good, Doja Cat for Best Art Direction, and Måneskin for Best Rock.

While the VMAs used to be appointment television responsible for serving historic performances such as Madonna singing “Like A Virgin” while writhing on the floor in a wedding dress in 1984, Madonna singing “Vogue” dressed in Marie Antoinette drag in 1990, and Madonna singing “Hollywood” while making out with Britney Spears and Xtina in 2003, in recent years it’s been sort of lackluster.

Thankfully, the powers that be upped the wattage by not just enlisting the new class of pop children on TikTok who don’t even know what Music TeleVision is (no offense to Olivia Rodrigo and Stray Kids) and reveled in millennial eleganza by reuniting ‘NSYNC, re-introducing Nelly Furtado to the world, honoring Shakira with the Video Vanguard Award, anointing Diddy as a Global Icon, and celebrating 50 years of hip-hop with a star-studded number featuring  Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, LL Cool J, Doug E. Fresh, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. Tens across the board!

The VMA pink carpet carpet featured a parade of head-turning style slays including lots of dapper dudes in white, divas in body-baring gowns, and even a hetero hunk in a leather minidress. Werk!

Click through to see all the fiercest lewks from the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards…