The Best, the Worst, the Least, and the Most of the 2024 Met Gala
Will Vogue ever manage to pull off a competent live event?!
If you were puzzled by the theme and/or dress code at the Met Gala last night, you were not alone. The exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art carried the “Sleeping Beauties” theme, in reference to outfits that cannot be worn again — inspired, no doubt, by Kim Kardashian in 2022 borrowing and ruining that iconic Marilyn Monroe collector’s piece. But it’s hard to have a dress code based on things you shouldn’t wear, so Anna and her curators picked an alternative, and eventually had to eat a little crow. As Amy Odell wrote in
:In fact, Anna went on the Today show Monday morning and apologized for the “confusion” over the theme, given that the Costume Institute exhibition Sleeping Beauties — which the Gala opens — is different from the dress code. I won’t say she blamed it on Costume Institute Chief Curator Andrew Bolton, but…
“I said, ‘What are we gonna say to people to wear to this night?’ And he said, ‘Well, what about ‘Garden of Time?’” she said. “So, I fear that we’ve unleashed a lot of confusion out there, and for which I deeply apologize.”
Remember the Covid-cancelled 2020 Met Gala, whose theme was supposed to be “About Time: Fashion and Duration”? We suspect Andrew Bolton had J.G. Ballard’s “The Garden of Time” short story kicking around his brain for that one, and was so bummed he never got to use it that he leapt at the chance to shoehorn it in here. And, yes, officially, the whole thing was unnecessarily daft — but unofficially, we kind of enjoyed it? Two themes in one! Frankly, it’s always a little hard to interpret what the heck any of these outfits mean — the ONE time we’d welcome Laverne Cox asking celebrities what story they’re trying to tell! — so you might as well make the entire endeavor a doubly wild crapshoot. Many attendees simply plucked the word “garden” and went floral; others did attempt to merge this with Ballard’s themes of death and decay. Others latched onto “sleeping beauties” and decided to go for archival outfits. Olivier Rousteing of Balmain used that concept as a launchpad to create looks that could not be worn again and might then become museum pieces befitting the very exhibit they were there to support. Co-host Jennifer Lopez fumbled through an explanation about her dress having a butterfly connection because they wake up from being asleep in cocoons; Rosalia said on Vogue’s livestream that she knew her dress had to be black because the theme had to do with sleeping, and black is the first thing you see when you close your eyes. And in one of the big Vogue/eBay ads that sponsored the livestream, Madelyn Cline claimed the theme for “fashion’s biggest night” was “the callback,” which… no! That’s not even one of the choices! That’s not what any of this means! That’s probably why several folks like Stella McCartney did whatever the heck they wanted — in Stella’s case because her mission for the night was to extol the sustainable virtues of lab-grown diamonds (fair!).
We have a LOT to discuss from the evening, so let’s leap into the superlatives.
ROUGHEST BEGINNING: The Vogue livestream opened in the middle of a sentence and seemed a bit lost as to how to fill time -- which, for those of us who enjoy logistics, was interesting from the standpoint of hearing photographers yelling to get a star’s attention. But it also -- inexplicably, as they are in charge of the arrival timings and entire schedule here? -- took them too long to land anyone to interview, and even longer than expected to check in with each other about their outfits. Generally, if you have exclusive access to the guests for interviews, you need to figure out how to USE that without big periods of dead air that hosts Gwendoline Christie and Ashley Graham seemed unclear how to fill. Then again...
BEST INSTINCT: Gwen and Ashley seemed AWARE that they were not adept at filling dead air, so it’s for the best they didn’t really attempt it. Ashley opened the evening by announcing that each successive person “NEVER DISAPPOINTS” and Gwen just thought everyone was spectacular, so we were actually FINE with less of that and more of photographers yelling, “UP TOP, UP HERE, GIVE US A LOOK AT THE FRONT OF THE DRESS... OR NOT, WHATEVER.”
BEST VIBE: Having said all of that, while they were a bit gushy, Gwen and Ashley had a nice rapport with a lot of people they spoke to and clearly made it easy for them to chat. (They had a much better night than La La Anthony, who once again repeatedly made sure we know she’s friends with the KarJenners, and whose low point may have been getting Nicholas Galitzine -- a hot actor on many levels, with multiple high-profile projects -- and only asking him for a tidbit about Anne Hathaway before dismissing him.) Overall, here’s the takeaway: To be worse than Derek Blasberg and Chloe Fineman, Gwen and Ashley would’ve had to steal someone’s jewelry in plain sight and kneecap a child on the way out, so congrats ladies! You had a low bar to clear, but you DID it.
WORST VIBE: E! had Ross Mathews somewhere next to the staircase, but could not broadcast continuously from inside, presumably due to whatever parameters Vogue set for itself. Ergo, E!’s show — inexplicably tape-delayed on the West Coast in this, the Year of our Lord 2024 -- was actually happening elsewhere. Lily Aldridge, Zanna Roberts, Elaine Welteroth, and Zuri Hall sat in some studio and were fed footage of people’s entrances, which they reacted to by pretending it was happening in real-time right in front of them. All four women thought everyone looked incredible and flawless, and often talked over each other in an effort to be the most gushy. The situation improved when Christian Siriano arrived, because he is not afraid to have an opinion, but overall it felt like a real waste of resources and general Panderfest. Somewhere, Joan Rivers has notes.
WEIRDEST FLEX: This really felt like the year of, “It took 500 hours to make.” “It took 1,000 Atelier hours to make.” “There are 2,800,000 beads and it took 5,000 hours to make.” (That one was Gigi Hadid.) “This weighs 15 pounds!” (Camila Cabello.) “This dress has 300,000 crystals that were sung to by babies.” “All these beads were individually foraged by time-traveling yaks over the course of ten years.” At a few points, Christian Siriano casually responded to one of these many claims with, “I don’t know about THAT…” and we have never felt more in tune with him.
MOST SURPRISING TREND: The Met Gala was a total Unconventional Materials challenge. Olivier Rousteing of Balmain made two outfits out of literal sand, and Loewe dressed Taylor Russell in a bodice made of wood. Harris Reed used actual vintage wallpaper for his and Demi Moore’s outfits, and Charli XCX’s Marni frock was made of tee-shirts from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. Rousteing made the best argument for being on-theme, as noted in the intro, but we’re all for this in general at the Met. If you aren’t totally clear on the wackadoo theme, then challenging oneself to craft a really creative art piece is a great default.
WORST TREND: Nobody seemed like they could breathe. Ashley Graham said as much, noting that “my organs have been moved together.” Cameras caught Brie Larson chatting in line and tapping on her sternum and making a face that suggested, “This hurts.” Kim Kardashian’s corset was so extreme that she needed help moving in her dress, and looked lightheaded trying to get up the stairs; fortunately, she seemed okay in her interview, but still, YOU HAVE RIBS. RESPECT THEM. Overall, in fact: Let’s normalize breathing.
WORST INSTINCT: The Met folks always try so hard to come up with an interesting (literal) carpet, but we’ve had more misses than hits lately. This year, they picked a white one that turned green at the edges near the plant-bedecked railings, presumably to lean into “garden”... but in practice, it was leaning fungal:
You never want your expensive bespoke carpet to look like a neglected loaf of bread in a college student’s apartment.
MOST CONCERNING METEOROLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT: Although it was a mere 70 degrees on the Upper East Side last night, it was apparently EXTREMELY HUMID. And you could tell! Everyone on the red carpet... let’s be polite and say they glowed. Several people in our (very fun!) live chat wondered if there was some new makeup trend afoot -- but if so, it was only because being VERY VERY GLOWY was basically the only option available to makeup artists due to the fact that glowiness was going to happen to everyone’s face regardless. And in addition to folks being unable to breathe, we spied several people fanning themselves while waiting their turn in front of the camera. “There’s A/C inside,” La La Anthony chirped to at least one person. It is a relief, we suppose, to find out that Anna Wintour cannot (yet) control the weather.
BIGGEST NIGHT: Maison Margiela dressed two of the celebrity hosts -- Zendaya and Bad Bunny -- and Noted Interviewer Gwendoline Christie, in addition to, at minimum1, Kim Kardashian and Natasha Poonawalla. And Loewe, which has had a HUGE year thanks to Greta Lee’s awards season and Challengers, dressed about eight people by our (potentially premature) count -- one of whom, shock of shocks, was Anna Wintour herself. Jonathan Anderson’s output was varied, interesting, well-constructed, at times deeply elegant, and yes, occasionally wacky. But overall, in 2024 he’s shown off skill and precision as well as a skewed point of view, cementing his brand as more than just a quirk factory.
BIGGEST SNUB??? Speaking of A-Dubs, since 2005, she has worn Chanel to all but two of the Galas. Even at the McQueen-themed party, she went with Chanel. Loewe was a swerve we did NOT expect. Is Virginie Viard quaking in her sensible quilted pumps?!?
BIGGEST HERO MOVE: Stella McCartney got Ed Sheeran to attend an event in an ACTUAL OUTFIT, rather than just, like, a sweater and kicks. And he looked great! We may never have said this before in our entire shared professional life, but: Maybe he should look to Stella more often?!? Like, WAY more often. (Sidebar: He did get his shoe caught in f.k.a. Twigs’s big loopy knit cape, although Stella was VERY chill about detangling them.)
BIGGEST ABSENCES: Valentino and Louis Vuitton tend to be the biggest culprits of Who Cares About the Theme, Let’s Just Dress A Jillion People In Whatever We Have Lying Around. But from what we’ve seen so far, the only Valentino of the night was a custom job on theater producer Jordan Roth, and nobody seemed to be in Vuitton -- not even ambassador Zendaya, nor loyalist Phoebe Dynevor, nor (former???) ambassador Michelle Williams. Maybe Anna SNAPPED. Ad pages be damned! (Oh, and possibly no Dolce & Gabbana? Can it be true?)
BIGGEST HUMAN ABSENCES: Well. This is a long list, and for us it may begin with Hunter Schafer. Also Nicola Coughlan. Lupita! Margot! Issa Rae! Surprise guest Linda Evangelista’s fellow supers Cindy and Christy! We could go on forever, because not EVERYONE can be invited, so let’s zero in on three who probably WERE and just didn’t attend: Zendaya’s partner Tom Holland is in rehearsals for Romeo & Juliet in London, so that was always unlikely, although they’re also pretty private. Ben Affleck met J.Lo backstage a few years ago, but he still CAME, although this time he apparently had to follow his Dunkin-soaked heart to the Tom Brady Netflix roast in L.A. on Sunday night. However, Spamalot has closed, so... whither Spongebob? If only we’d gotten all three of them on the Met carpet, or even backstage hanging out together and talking about Kenergy or whatever. WHITHER THE BIG CELEBRITY PLUS-ONES? (Somewhere, Elsa Pataky just cleared her throat pointedly.)
BIGGEST CRISIS AVERTED... AS FAR AS WE KNOW: Watching Lana del Rey parade around wearing a tree on her head -- like she was ripped from that season of Riverdale where everyone was in a weird D&D cult, or recently defected from The Knights Who Say Ni -- was hilarious. And frightening, and full of peril, because every time she turned her head she kept nearly blinding somebody. It does not seem like the worst happened, thankfully, though we’re not sure how. NOW who looks like a genius for wearing sunglasses everywhere she goes?!? Anna apparently has spent her whole life preparing for THIS exact moment.
ROUGHEST ENDING: Vogue inexplicably cut cameras on the live stream well before the arrivals were actually over, with several big names still waiting to make their trip up the stairs and into the museum. Nicki Minaj! Michelle Yeoh! Jodie Turner-Smith! Zendaya’s second lap! Allegedly Rihanna! This made zero sense. The whole thing was airing on Vogue.com and their own social media, so it’s not like they had to cut because Grey’s Anatomy was about to start. Condé Nast came to a tentative contract deal with unionized employees -- who had threatened to disrupt the event -- on Monday morning, so it wasn’t related to that. We switched over to watch the rest of the live feed on the Associated Press, and The Independent, and there were no other protesters of any ilk, either. Did Gwen and Ashley just really want to get inside for the end of cocktail hour? Does Conde Nast REFUSE to pay overtime? Even if so, leave the camera unmanned and running, and let people eyeball folks walking inside! What are you guys doing? Why is Vogue so bad at live events?!
MOST SUSPICIOUS LAST-MINUTE ILLNESS: Speaking of Rihanna, last week, she told Extra that she was planning to attend the Met, and would make it there in time for dinner. She also called her outfit “real simple,” “very simple,” and “very simple-ish... compared to everything I've ever done.” Well, like halfway through the red carpet last night, People reported that Rihanna would not be attending because she had the flu. And perhaps she DID have the flu! Or perhaps she decided this real very simple-ish look was a snooze and the line to get in was long and she didn’t want to go anymore. We’ll never know!
WEIRDEST TECHNICAL ERRORS: To reiterate what we just typed five seconds ago: Why is Vogue so bad at live events?! In addition to everything we’ve just bitched about, the sound at this event was chaotic: Ashley Graham’s mic was turned up to 11, while at one point, Ariana Grande told La La that she couldn’t even hear her, despite being right next to her. (This was right after Ariana gave an answer to a question about her dress that was clearly just making vague shit up related to what she thought La La had maybe asked.) Emma Chamberlain was on the scene as “Vogue’s special correspondent,” as in previous years, but every time they cut to her on the live stream, she had no audio. She was primarily there to cover the event for TikTok, we think, and presumably everything was fine on the app, but it was unfortunate that they seemingly could not use her for the rest of us. Several interview setups looked lightly bungled, including the one featuring Anna Wintour herself, who needed to be slightly cheated to the side so the camera saw her face and not her bob. There is no excuse, at this point, for Vogue -- or, frankly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art! -- to put on such an amateurish live event. Either splash out to pay the best of the best, or just set up a static camera, turn it on, and stop pretending.
MOST ENTERTAINING OFF-THE-CUFF MOMENTS: Here’s the thing. That static camera would still be entertaining! We saw so many funny, small random moments just in the crowd shots, because you’ve got a ton of celebrities in wacky outfits crammed in a small, sweaty space, and people are inherently interesting animals to observe. At one point, Alexandra Daddario -- whose outfit regrettably did not do her justice -- got caught in someone else’s shot and turned to the camera, pulled a face, and announced something that amounted to, “Shit!!!!! Sorry!!!” Singer Tyla’s Balmain dress was so tight that she had to be literally carried up the steps. As previously mentioned, Lana Del Rey did whack multiple people with her branches, with hilarious results. We didn’t necessarily tune into this to listen to people anyway. We mostly want to see them.
Last Call:
— The New York Times wrote a lengthy profile of one of the most important supporting players of the Met Gala: The Sprinter van. (That’s a gifted link!)
— Flavor Flav is a MENSCH. The U.S. women’s water polo team has won THREE consecutive gold medals, yet star player Maggie Steffens said they’re still having trouble funding the trip to Paris this summer. So Mr. Flav has stepped up and funded them: "As a girl dad and supporter of all women's sports - imma personally sponsor you my girl," Flav, born William Jonathan Drayton, replied. "Whatever you need. And imma sponsor the whole team." […] "The US Women's Waterpolo team has won the GOLD MEDAL THREE OLYMPICS IN A ROW," Flav wrote on X. "These women should not have to be working 2-3 side jobs to be able to compete." This RULES and I hope they get him front-row seats. And a waterproof clock to wear. —H
— Aw. As a coda to Christina Hendricks’s New Orleans wedding, she put on the dress a second time at home and got married again so that her mother — who has Alzheimer’s — could be there. Sniffle. (Shirley Manson officiated again, also in the same red cape dress!) The photos on Christina’s Instagram carousel are wonderful, especially this close-up of her mother hugging her. The emotion on her face. Wow. —H
— Finally, if you want to check out what everyone wore to the Met Gala last night in great detail, we’ll be running full red carpet coverage on Go Fug Yourself all day today! Come on by!
As we write this it’s too soon to know with certainty about any of the counts — too many people can slip through the cracks at an event this big. —H
"Overall, in fact: Let’s normalize breathing." A very sensible comment after a busy night. Breathing AND walking please.
I really loved Tyla’s sand dress - it was both a literal (sand through the hourglass) and a metaphorical (creating a new “sleeping beauty” that can never be worn again) interpretation of the theme. And she did, in fact, look cute in it! Taylor Russell’s was also really cool. The juxtaposition of the natural materials and the satin skirt, rendered in a Belle Epoque silhouette, was stunning. The DH and I also couldn’t stop laughing at “I’ve always wanted to be a tree.”