It was a jet-black wig, but—as ever with the Met Gala—the drama, not the blunt-cut dye-job, was the point.
Sydney Sweeney was just one of a host of stars wearing exceedingly, sometimes deliciously OTT looks, dramatic hairstyles, and astonishing couture for the Met Gala, in which the people deemed by Vogue and Condé Nast supremo Anna Wintour to be the (multi-defined) hottest and most influential of the moment converge to play dress-up, and celebrate the achievement of not eating for weeks in order to squeeze in whatever improbably designed threads have been dreamt up for them.
It is both extremely entertaining and glassily exhausting. The red carpet arrivals sashay relentlessly, in a haze of sequins, cutouts, flesh, intricate detailing, stunning headpieces and makeup, and jewelry worth gazillions, for over four hours. In a world of many and varied miseries, the Met Gala is unapologetically frothy escapism.
For Sweeney, her game of dress-up involved a severe black bob, which is a world away from the blonde easy-breeziness her fans know her for. The daring do was accompanied by a baby blue Miu Miu ball gown with a full tulle skirt that had delicate embroidered flowers on it. It also came with an all-conquering train, and black latex opera gloves. Vogue reported that Sweeney’s hair style was described as “a scene-stealing petit-noir wig,” which when placed “was dampened and blunt cut on Sweeney to create the coolest and most flattering shape possible.”
Sweeney and others like her got the memo: at the Met Gala more means more. Lana Del Rey (in a tulle and georgette dress by Alexander McQueen creative director Seán McGirr) looked like a fairytale-nightmare beekeeper. Cynthia Erivo (in severe and petal-ed Thom Browne) and Demi Moore (in custom Harris Reed, using vintage wallpaper!) dressed as performance. Gigi Hadid (in Thom Browne) dressed as a springtime statue. Look at Janelle Monáe in a barely-there construction of holographic discs: beautiful, daring, but will she able to sit down at any point tonight?
Cardi B’s endless black gown and tumbling ridges of tulle (by Windowsen) brought to mind Carrie Bradshaw collapsing in a sea of folds-upon-folds on that large and lonely hotel bed in Paris in the last episode of Sex and the City, her own self subsumed by the material.
At the Met Gala, the outfit is its own ecosystem, and the celebrity merely a vessel. The usual maxim that you should wear the outfit, and not let the outfit wear you, does not hold at the Met Gala. The outfit is everything, and even the most boldface of names knows their place; in line with their professions, they are there to deliver the goods, and perform.
To that end, Sweeney played a noir-ish self-disappearing act, Jennifer Lopez shimmered in sheer silver by Schiaparelli. Sarah Jessica Parker’s vertiginous Philip Treacy headpiece looked as sharp as a medieval scythe. It was also a year when the men—for example, Colman Domingo (in Willy Chavarria), Eddie Redmayne (in Steve O Smith), and Donald Glover (in Saint Laurent)—almost out-dressed the women in suits that were both loungey and languorous, or be-caped and studded with their own eccentric detailings.
Others surprised by going more conservative than may have been expected. Lauren Sánchez, sans Jeff Bezos, wore an Oscar de la Renta black velvet bodice and skirt and train covered in reflective shards that mimicked a floral pattern—a far cry from the busty red number she wore at the White House recently to a gale of pearl-clutching headlines.
“In my head, it’s definitely a metaphor for life because it’s a little bit about all your broken pieces in life and putting those pieces back together,” Sanchez told the New York Post of her Met Gala dress. “It’s not just a dress. It is really a piece of art.”
If any outfits didn’t immediately seem to echo the theme, the Met Gala’s grand organizer, Vogue’s global editorial director and Condé Nast’s chief content officer, Anna Wintour, had already taken responsibility for it. Wintour told the Today show’s Jenna Bush Hager that she “deeply apologized” for “unleashing a lot of confusion” around what to turn up in after “The Garden of Time” was named as the dress code, its name taken from J.G. Ballard’s dystopia-streaked 1962 short story. “I imagine we’ll see a lot of flowers,” Wintour said.
This year’s Met Gala is the grand opening to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s latest exhibit, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion (May 10-Sep. 2), a survey of around 250 of the museum’s most ancient garments. While the Gala guest list remained a mystery until the first wild outfits appeared, the chairs of the Gala were well-known: Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, Zendaya, and Chris Hemsworth. Yes, Wintour told Today, she has advised attendees on what to wear in previous years, suggesting to Serena Williams when she co-chaired that she should wear sneakers: “She has said many times that she was grateful for that suggestion.” (On Monday, Serena shimmered in gold.)
Asked if it was true she had banned chives, onion, and garlic form the Gala menu, Wintour said, “Those are three things I’m not particularly fond of, so yes, that’s true.” Of the ban on cellphones (frequently contravened in the bathrooms, as multiple past celebrity selfies testify to), Wintour said that after dinner attendees said they had had “the most wonderful conversations. That’s the idea. Life can exist without a picture on your cellphone.” Time will tell how not-in-use those cellphones remain as the night goes on.
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