For decades, the BET Awards has celebrated music, film, sports, and television, but it never had a category for the thing that ties all of it together: fashion.

That changes at the 2026 BET Awards with the debut of the Fashion Vanguard Award, a new category recognizing global figures whose fashion presence has had long-standing cultural impact, significantly influenced style, and continues to elevate fashion as a form of storytelling across music, film, sports, and pop culture. The timing couldn't be more right. The nine nominees on this list have been making the case for this award for years. 

Beyoncé doesn't need an introduction in any category. She's a Thierry Mugler alumna, a fashion designer (hello House of Deréon and Ivy Park), a custom couture collector, and the rare artist whose wardrobe has its own life — from the Renaissance tour's silver takeover to the archival designers that shut down every red carpet she walks. 

Rihanna pioneered what it means for a Black woman to own a fashion house outright. Fenty became a billion-dollar luxury empire, and she received the 2014 CFDA Fashion Icon award while wearing one of the best looks in the ceremony's history. Not to mention her own style has only grown from there.

Zendaya consistently closes out every press cycle as the consensus best-dressed person on the planet, turning every interview into a conceptual fashion moment with stylist Law Roach. 

A$AP Rocky is used to taking home the fashion winner hardware. The CFDA named him its 2025 Fashion Icon, honoring the Harlem-born rapper for reshaping menswear through fearless style, cultural influence, and creative direction. He's also Ray-Ban's first-ever Creative Director, where he debuted a "Blacked Out" redesign of the brand's Mega Icons line. 

Bad Bunny is the only man alive who can wear a custom Prada look with a pava-inspired raffia tie one year and a backless Jacquemus suit with an eight-meter floral train the next and make both feel divinely masculine. He is rewriting what Latin menswear means globally. 

Colman Domingo is what the Vanguard Award was made for. He co-chaired the 2025 Met Gala — themed "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" — and has collaborated with Valentino, Versace, and Willy Chavarria to build a red carpet portfolio that challenges traditional menswear norms. "I always want to feel effortlessly luxurious," he said. "I want to feel like I'm the party in some way, shape, or form." 

Cardi B brings fashion to the streets and the streets to fashion. Her red carpet looks routinely break the internet, and her ability to wear both a $10,000 couture gown and a $40 fast fashion set with equal conviction is its own kind of genius. 

Doechii is the newest name in this field and possibly the most exciting. In 2025, she wore five custom Thom Browne looks at a single Grammy ceremony and followed it up at the 2026 Grammys in a custom Roberto Cavalli plum silk corset with a 13-foot embroidered train. She's a year into her mainstream moment and already shaping what the next generation of Black fashion looks like. 

Teyana Taylor has been doing it longer with less credit. She holds Jordan Brand collaborations, MAC partnerships, slays every appearance and carpet, and she’s a Time Women of the Year (who ate the cover up)— all while making Harlem her permanent mood board. 

So yeah, this category is overdue. BET has always known that fashion is culture. Now it has an award that says so.