Two-year drought over for Met Gala

Posted Oct. 4, 2021

By T Gedi

Staff Editor

After a two year-long drought, the annual Met Gala was revived at The Met in New York City. The theme this year explored American Fashion: A Lexicon of Fashion, a drastic turn from the previous theme, “Camp” (a style of fashion that is so hideous. It’s appealing. Ironic, I know).

First things first, let me explain what the Met Gala even is. The Met Gala is a fundraiser for the Anna Wintour Costume Institute (named after Vogue’s editor-in-chief and artistic director of Conde Nast, Anna Wintour) which has to raise its own money as it is the only wing not funded by the Metropolitan Museum of the Arts. The costume institute preserves thousands of costumes and fashion pieces, some centuries old. Only the elite celebrities are invited to attend (supposedly, in recent years we’ve witnessed social media influencers at the events, so the exclusivity is slowly diminishing), ranging from Olympic gold medalists, to singers, to movie directors, to models.

Designers and celebrities interpreted the theme in their own manner. Thankfully, a handful of celebrities followed the theme (which they rarely ever do) and paid tribute to American icons. Billie EIlish paid a tribute to Marilyn Monroe, stunning in a custom gown by Dominican designer, Oscar De La Renta. Her hair was styled in a short, blond cut, similar to the late Monroe’s. Model Anok Yai paid a tribute to Black, female singer Tina Turner. Yai also wore Oscar De La Renta, her gown a long black gown embellished with stars and paired with a feather boa.

Even though we’ve progressed as a society and gender non-conformity is like a thing now, men still insist on going with the traditional all black suits. Elliot Page, however, spiced up his Balenciaga suit with a green carnation, an ode to queer romance. The carnation was popularized by British writer Oscar Wilde in the late 1800s. Kim Harington channelled old Hollywood glamour with a milk white Saint Laurent tux and black suit pants. Classy, but somewhat original and a great move away from the traditional all black tuxedo attire. As much as suits are overdone, there’s men (cough, A$AP Rocky, cough Pete Davidson) who should’ve played it safe and went with a traditional Black tux rather than the atrocity they wore on the runway.

Similar to Harington, female celebrities were styled in Saint Laurent for their Met looks, Driver’s License singer, Olivia Rodrigo, also wore Saint Laurent. Her look was a monochromatic cat suit with feathers. Blackpink’s Rose was seen in look #45 from Saint Laurent fall 2021 ready-to-wear.

Lil Nas X, flamboyant queer country singer of the hit “Old Town Road”, gave us quite a show, coming with not one, but three looks. For his first look, he opted for a dramatic robe designed by Donatella Versace, removed it to reveal his second look, a suit of armor, and then removed the armor to show the third look, a gold catsuit. All golden, all Versace, but off theme. This was Nas’s first Met Gala, but not his first time giving the audience a performance in regards to flashy outfits (um, hello, have you seen his iconic VMAs outfit?).

Rihanna is known to give us a show stopping Met Gala look, but this year the billionaire businesswoman’s couture was very disappointing. The Fenty founder wore look #53 from Balenciaga fall 2021 couture, (essentially a parka-dress) paired with 267 carats of Bulgari diamonds. Her outfit was outshined by Kim Kardashian who also wore Balenciaga, but hers was a custom made look by Demna Gvasalia. Kim Kardashian was covered from head to toe in all black and a hip length ponytail (rumored to cost 10K alone) , yet her presence was known. In a way the A-list celebrity Kim Kardashian is on theme (American: A Lexicon of Fashion). It’s telling that we all knew who the faceless figure was despite her dark silhouette. I mean, who else would the surgically enhanced body belong to? Love her or hate her, Kim Kardashian is American culture and her presence is known by all.

Ultimately, I truly believe Kendall Jenner (hypothetically, the Met isn’t a competition) won this year’s Met Gala with her Audrey Hepburn tribute. Jenner wore a floor length custom Givenchy gown.

Fifteen million people tuned in to the red carpet event across the livestream on Vogue.com and their Twitter account. In addition, Vogue surpassed 200 million views across all of their social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and more. This is a significant increase from the previous year which only garnered 192.6 million views.