In her own words: “She coming.”
After Beyoncé dropped the cryptic two-word tease in advance of her latest tour, the phrase quickly became one of her fans’ favorite ways to express their excitement for her next move.
So when it was revealed that she was going to attend this year’s Met Gala as an event co-chair, red carpet watchers saw the potential for much more than a simple party appearance.
In the past week, speculation making the rounds online has been imaginative: Will she be dropping her first single in two years? Will she use the occasion to announce an album? A tour? Perhaps Blue Ivy will be accompanying her? (That last one is unlikely, as minors typically aren’t allowed in.)
Whatever it is that will or won’t be announced, it has been 10 years since Beyoncé attended the event, a starry fund-raiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s fashion-minded Costume Institute, and her fans are starved to see her in something besides a polished Instagram post.
All eyes will be on the pop star to see how she interprets this year’s dress code, “Fashion Is Art.” Over her seven previous Met Gala appearances, Beyoncé’s ensembles have evolved from minimal elegance to more bold and daring garments with the help of a longtime stylist and a Givenchy creative director.
Below, a look through Beyoncé’s Met Gala history, and where the appearances fit into her singular career trajectory.
2008
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy
Armani Privé
Beyoncé attended her first Met Gala in May 2008 wearing a blush pink strapless Armani Privé gown with a sweetheart neckline and a train that resembled a cape — a nod to that year’s spring Costume Institute exhibition, which examined the parallels between fashion and superheroes.
At the time, the Marvel cinematic universe was in its infancy — the first “Iron Man” film was released just three days earlier — and the global recession was on the horizon. It was also six months before Beyoncé released her third studio album, “I Am … Sasha Fierce,” and just one month after Beyoncé and Jay-Z were married in a private ceremony in TriBeCa.
Her understated, elegant look by Giorgio Armani, who was an honorary chair of the event, preceded the release of her smash hit “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” which helped propel her into an entirely different tier of superstardom.
2011
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
Pucci
After finishing up her “I Am …” world tour and creating her own management and production company, Parkwood Entertainment, Beyoncé returned to the Met Gala carpet three years later wearing a black Emilio Pucci mermaid gown with gold embroidery, black sequins and a keyhole cutout across her chest.
The look was in honor of the evening’s larger theme celebrating Alexander McQueen, the British fashion designer who died at 40 and was acclaimed for his provocative women’s wear collections. Because of the dress’s fishtail design, Beyoncé at times struggled to walk up the red-carpet stairs upon arrival. So with the help of Jay-Z and Ty Hunter, her stylist at the time, she was finally able to make her way inside.
Later that year, Beyoncé would also release her fourth studio album, “4,” and announce her pregnancy while performing at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
2012
Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations
Givenchy
Beyoncé, who was rehearsing for her next tour and wasn’t originally planning to attend the 2012 gala, decided at the last minute that she wanted to go, her former stylist told WWD.
“Literally within a day or a couple of hours all of that happened — and it ended up being one of her most talked-about looks,” he told the magazine in 2017.
The look in question was a sheer, embellished Givenchy gown with a black and purple feathered train. That year’s exhibition put the iconoclastic designs of Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, two Italian fashion designers, in conversation.
This would be the first of five Givenchy gowns she would wear to future Met Galas, and an early peek into what would become a close relationship with the Italian designer Riccardo Tisci, the house’s creative director until 2017.
2013
Punk: Chaos to Couture
Givenchy
A few months after headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, Beyoncé served as honorary chair at the 2013 gala, which looked at the sartorial impact of punk culture since its emergence in the 1970s.
“Although punk’s democracy stands in opposition to fashion’s autocracy, designers continue to appropriate punk’s aesthetic vocabulary to capture its youthful rebelliousness and aggressive forcefulness,” Andrew Bolton, now the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, said in a statement at the time.
Teaming up with Givenchy again, the pop star wore a custom gown with fiery detailing, a strapless corset bodice and matching elbow-length gloves and thigh-high boots.
2014
Charles James: Beyond Fashion
Givenchy
Charles James was a visionary 20th-century Anglo-American couturier who took sculptural and mathematical approaches to designing his ball gowns and would describe his style as many things, including “a high form of eroticism.”
Rising to the occasion for the 2014 Met Gala in his honor, Beyoncé arrived wearing a sheer black Givenchy ensemble with black sparkly embellishments, a deep plunging neckline and a cinched waist. Her hair, which was pulled back into a bun, was covered by a black netted veil.
She was accompanied by her husband, and her sister, Solange Knowles, was also in attendance. The three would go on to make headlines after Solange got into a physical altercation with Jay-Z, as the three rode in an elevator together after the gala. Footage of the ordeal was later leaked to the public, causing rabid speculation about the state of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s relationship.
2015
China: Through the Looking Glass
Givenchy
Beyoncé arrived at the 2015 gala wearing a head-turning, custom-made gown that was almost entirely sheer, adorned only with carefully placed multicolored Swarovski crystals.
That spring’s exhibition, which examined how Chinese art and film have influenced Western fashion design, resulted in some of the most memorable Met Gala looks to date, including Rihanna’s canary yellow robe gown by Guo Pei and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Philip Treacy headpiece.
That year’s Met Gala also highlighted the growing power of social media, marking the first time #MetGala was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, with around 1.5 million tweets posted with the hashtag, according to the museum.
With her and Jay-Z’s last-minute red carpet arrival and one year after the elevator incident, all eyes were on them as they made their way inside.
2016
Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology
Givenchy
Less than a month after the surprise release of “Lemonade,” Beyoncé’s sixth album, on which she recounts an emotional journey through marital betrayal, she arrived to what would be her final Met Gala for a decade.
In the spirit of the corresponding exhibition, an exploration of “how designers are reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear,” Beyoncé wore a custom latex Givenchy gown with a mermaid silhouette, puffed sleeves and pink florals displayed throughout.
The dress was embellished with hundreds of pearls, and the color of the gown contrasted with her smoky eye shadow. Of course, she arrived fashionably late and unaccompanied, and posed for a few photos before heading inside.
Gina Cherelus covers dating, relationships and culture for The Times and writes the weekly dating column Third Wheel.
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