For Mariska Hargitay, the 2026 Emmy Awards were always going to be a major night.
She was not simply attending television’s biggest celebration.
She was hosting it.
But before Hargitay stepped onto the Emmy stage at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater on September 14, she created one of the evening’s most memorable moments on the red carpet — and she did it with the people closest to her.
Hargitay arrived with her husband, actor Peter Hermann, and their three children: August, Amaya and Andrew.
It immediately transformed an enormous professional milestone into a family occasion.
Then Hargitay and her 15-year-old daughter Amaya stepped forward together.
Both were dressed in brilliant red.
Both sparkled beneath the cameras.
And both were quietly carrying the memory of another woman onto the Emmy carpet:
Jayne Mansfield.
The coordinated Monse gowns worn by mother and daughter were not simply a fashionable coincidence. The fashion house confirmed that the looks paid tribute to Hargitay’s late mother, the glamorous Hollywood star whose image became synonymous with the 1950s.
More specifically, the red sequins evoked one of Mansfield’s famous looks from the 1956 musical comedy The Girl Can’t Help It.
For anyone familiar with Hargitay’s personal history, the symbolism was difficult to miss.
Jayne Mansfield died when Mariska was only three years old.
Nearly six decades later, Mariska walked one of entertainment’s biggest red carpets alongside her own teenage daughter, both dressed in a visual reference to the mother Mariska lost as a child.
Three generations were represented.
Only two could physically stand together.
And that transformed a glamorous Emmy fashion moment into something far more personal.
A Family Arrival for Television’s Biggest Night
Hargitay had a unique role at the 78th Emmy Awards.
The Television Academy officially announced in July that the longtime Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star would host the September 14 ceremony, which aired live on NBC and streamed on Peacock.
It was an appropriate assignment for someone whose relationship with NBC stretches back decades.
Hargitay has portrayed Captain Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU since the series premiered in 1999, making Benson one of the most enduring lead characters in American television.
The 2026 Emmys also fell during NBC’s 100th-birthday celebration, adding another layer of significance to her selection.
When her hosting role was announced, Hargitay spoke about storytelling as the center of her career and said it was an honor to celebrate the people who create television.
But when the night finally arrived, she did not come alone.
Peter Hermann walked the carpet beside her.
So did their children.
August, the couple’s eldest, was 20.
Amaya was 15.
Andrew was 14.
The sight of all five family members together was notable in itself. Hargitay and Hermann have often spoken warmly about their children, but the family does not make every major Hollywood event into a group appearance.
For the Emmys, however, they were together.
And Amaya had an especially important role in the evening’s visual story.
Mother and Daughter in Red
Mariska and Amaya did not wear identical dresses, but the connection between their looks was unmistakable.
Both wore vivid red Monse designs covered in shimmering details.
Hargitay’s dramatic gown featured sequins, feathers and a sweeping silhouette appropriate for the person about to command the Emmy stage.
Amaya wore a youthful interpretation of the same idea.
The two posed side by side, creating the kind of mother-daughter red-carpet image that would have generated attention regardless of the inspiration behind it.
But Monse confirmed to Page Six Style that there was a specific reference.
Jayne Mansfield.
The red dresses recalled the glittering red gown Mansfield wore in The Girl Can’t Help It, one of the films most closely associated with her Hollywood image.
Mansfield appears in the 1956 movie in a glamorous red sequined gown — exactly the kind of bold Old Hollywood look that helped establish her as one of the decade’s most recognizable stars.
Seventy years later, the visual language returned.
Not on Mansfield.
On her daughter and granddaughter.
The Woman Behind the Tribute
To understand why that matters, it helps to understand who Jayne Mansfield was.
During the 1950s, Mansfield became one of Hollywood’s most photographed stars.
She was an actress, nightclub performer and celebrity whose carefully constructed public image emphasized glamour, humor and spectacle.
Alongside figures such as Marilyn Monroe, Mansfield became associated with a particular era of Hollywood femininity.
But reducing her to that image misses part of her story.
Mansfield was also a working actress navigating an entertainment industry that frequently blurred the line between a woman’s talent and the persona studios believed audiences wanted from her.
One of her breakthrough performances came in The Girl Can’t Help It, directed by Frank Tashlin and released in 1956.
The film became memorable not only because of Mansfield but also because of its connection to early rock 'n' roll, featuring musical appearances by performers including Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.
Mansfield played Jerri Jordan, a woman whose gangster boyfriend wants to transform her into a singing star.
The movie leaned deliberately into Mansfield’s glamorous screen image.
Her costumes became part of that spectacle.
Among them was the sparkling red look that would eventually inspire the Hargitay family’s 2026 Emmy tribute.
At the time, nobody could have imagined where that dress’s visual legacy would travel.
Mariska Was Only Three
Jayne Mansfield's life ended suddenly on June 29, 1967.
She was 34.
Mansfield was traveling by car from Mississippi toward New Orleans when the vehicle she was riding in collided with the rear of a tractor-trailer on a Louisiana highway.
Mariska was in the car.
So were two of her brothers.
The children survived.
Their mother did not.
Mariska was only three years old.
That fact has followed virtually every biographical account of Hargitay, but understanding its emotional meaning requires looking beyond the dates.
A three-year-old does not experience the death of a mother as a Hollywood historical event.
It becomes part of the architecture of childhood.
Hargitay grew up carrying both the absence of her mother and the enormous public mythology surrounding her.
Mansfield was not someone the world was willing to forget.
Photographs remained.
Movies remained.
Headlines remained.
The glamorous image remained.
Mariska therefore had to develop her own relationship with a mother she barely had time to know while millions of strangers believed they already knew Jayne Mansfield.
Decades later, Hargitay would confront that complicated inheritance directly.
Becoming Mariska Hargitay
One of the most remarkable aspects of Hargitay’s career is that she eventually created a public identity almost entirely separate from her famous mother.
When Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered in September 1999, Hargitay appeared as Detective Olivia Benson opposite Christopher Meloni’s Elliot Stabler.
No one could have known how enduring the character would become.
More than a quarter-century later, Benson remains central to SVU.
Hargitay did not merely inherit fame.
She built her own.
Her performance earned major awards, including an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2006.
But the character also changed Hargitay’s life outside acting.
Because SVU deals extensively with sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, Hargitay began receiving letters from viewers who shared their own experiences of trauma.
Instead of treating those messages as simply part of celebrity fandom, she became increasingly involved in advocacy.
In 2004, she founded the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization focused on survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.
The actress playing Olivia Benson had become a public advocate in her own right.
That work helped establish an identity for Hargitay based on something very different from the image that surrounded Mansfield.
Yet as Mariska became more secure in her own story, she also became increasingly willing to examine her mother's.
Looking Back at Jayne
For many years, the public knew Mansfield primarily through an archive of familiar images.
The blonde hair.
The gowns.
The poses.