From the Met Gala 2024 red carpet: The good, the bad and the weird

Held every first Monday in May, the Met Gala was designed as the ultimate red carpet to cap awards season by Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue chief and Conde Nast’s global editorial director. Wintour, 74, took charge of the Met Gala in 1995, and as the chair of the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, transformed the dusty highbrow dinner into the most-anticipated annual celebration of fashion and celebrity that we know today, a pop culture event – it’s the Madonna concert of red carpets – with couture clothes.

What makes this event stand out as a talking point with endless buzz is that the A-List guests submit to theme set by the Institute: You aren’t just looking at the usual suspects in random Project Runway fashion; instead they’re judged based on how well they have scored given the parameters of the theme. Naturally, the theme also contributes to carnival-like displays (hello, Lizzo) and unintended hilarity (hello, Lana Del Rey) – the gala simply sparks joy. This year, the dress code is ‘The Garden of Time’, a quote from the JG Ballard’s 1962 short story, tenuously linked to The Costume Institute exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.

In all the melee of celebrities whirling and twirling before the cameras vying for clicks, it’s easy to forget that the red carpet is but the tail that wags the dog of the exhibition, which features 250 rare items drawn from the Costume Institute’s collection, spanning 400 years of fashion history. Some garments, too fragile to ever be worn again, or indeed displayed on mannequins – such as the 1877 Charles Frederick Worth gown – have to be displayed lying down.

HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST

Standing at the top of The Met stairs, the queen of all she surveyed (the term “holding court” comes to mind), Wintour wore custom Loewe. Was she on theme? Naturally, but in a mother-of-the-bride in the garden party kind of way with a coat of feather gladioli (designed by co-chair Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Loewe) and her signature choker. The other co-chair was the dapper, if embattled TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi. In a winning publicity move, the partnership with The Met Gala would garner more support for Chew’s fight against the US government’s “ban or sell” TikTok bill passed in April. Chew looked polished in classic black-tie, with a diamond bouquet brooch in a nod to the theme.

The gala’s hosts – carefully inclusive – were Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth. Zendaya paid tribute to John Galliano by wearing not one, but two, outfits by the couturier, whom many guests also wore that night.

Zendaya first appeared in a Maison Margiela Artisanal creation, which is Galliano’s latest collection (although it references one of his first designs at Dior), and then a 1996 Givenchy by John Galliano gown, from the beginning of his career (the hat is Alexander McQueen from 2007.) It’s not for nothing that Zendaya is this generation’s hottest style icon: Her dual ensembles pay tribute to the passage of time in the garden of Galliano’s oeuvre. The spiralling belle epoque gown festooned with glistening grapes, absinthe soaked, the poisoned makeup of a Toulouse-Lautrec damsel – is fashion genius.

Rapper Bad Bunny also wore Maison Margiela Artisanal, a deconstructed navy tuxedo, with a red stripe, tabi hoof shoes and a clutch of deconstructed flowers. Jennifer Lopez looked, no surprises, her usual self in a Schiaparelli haute couture dress by Daniel Roseberry, beaded minutely like a sugared butterfly skeleton. It’s beaded, it’s nude, it’s form-fitting – typically Lopez. Even more typical is Hemsworth – he wore a cream three-piece Tom Ford suit. Perhaps he was channelling a cream garden gate, or maybe a park bench? Why was he there at all?

IN FULL FLOWER

At 61, Michelle Yeoh in a silver Balenciaga ballgown seemed to have blossomed into her own personal best. The erstwhile Bond girl and wuxia pugilist made history last year as the first Asian to ever win a best actress Oscar. Just last week, US President Joe Biden awarded Yeoh the US Presidential Medal of Freedom at a dignified ceremony at the White House. Yeoh, who sported a new youthful haircut, is never not-wearing Balenciaga these days, after becoming the fashion house’s first-ever Asian ambassador.

No less stunning were Balenciaga’s other muses Nicole Kidman, and French actress Isabelle Huppert. Kidman wore a recreation of a 1950 gown by Cristobal Balenciaga, with flamenco ruffles that referenced Balenciaga’s Spanish heritage; Huppert wore a liquid silver dress which pooled down the stairs, a recreation of a 1930 Callot Soeurs dress that is part of the exhibition. These three figures, like the Fates of Greek mythology, are a study on the passage of time.

Another actress who only seems to have grown more lovely with age is Penelope Cruz, in a classic lace number by Chanel. English actress Gwendoline Christie is a statuesque Earth Mother in red velvet Maison Margiela by John Galliano. Sarah Jessica Parker was effortlessly elegant in a Richard Quinn lace-applique birdcage of a dress – as effortlessly as anyone can be in a birdcage dress and matching Philip Treacy headpiece. Gigi Hadid looked as fresh as a daisy in Thom Browne’s ball gown made of tennis jackets and yellow roses. Nicki Minaj was unexpectedly cute in a mini Marni hourglass bustier popping out in arty 3-D metal flowers. Rapper Doja Cat, never one to shy from spectacle, wore a long white T-shirt by Vetements, completely soaked through, with running eye makeup. It’s as if her dress was wet from tears.

Some of the men stood out for their splendid, if safe, fashion sense. Some, not all. There were not a few men who went for broke, to bizarre effect. The always ineffably charming Eddie Redmayne, for one, wore an experiment by new English tailor Steve O Smith – an abstract expressionist coatdress, which ended in a tutu.

English actor Nicholas Galitzine smouldered in a Fendi tuxedo jacket with tone-on-tone floral embroidery, while Mike Faist wore a Loewe tuxedo, with a bejewelled beet in his lapel. Josh O'Connor came in a Loewe swallow-tailed suit, and floral booties. Thai heartthrob Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree, in his debut at the gala, wore Burberry by Daniel Lee, a textured, military-inspired coat, with a gold mesh top – the prince for waking up any sleeping beauties, surely. Tommy Hilfiger also dressed K-pop band Stray Kids in military style coats and suits. The kids – Felix, Hyunjin, Bang Chan, Han, Seungmin, I.N, Lee Know, and Changbin – were unusually subdued, like chastened cadets, silent and rather beautiful.

GARDEN VARIETY

The inevitable Kim Kardashian, 43, was not having a fashion moment this time round – despite wearing Galliano’s design. For years running, she had made The Met Gala her very own runway, but not for this edition. The sheer and glitter Maison Margiela Artisanal hourglass gown, with its painfully small corset, matched with icy-blonde hair and clutching a grey cardigan, perfectly contrasted with her usually bombastic style. It was pretty, but there’s only so much refinement that Kim Kardashian can take.

You could say the same of Kylie Jenner, who looked rather glamourous in a curvy vanilla Oscar de la Renta bustier gown, but unremarkable. Sienna Miller, in Chloe, designed by Chemena Kamali, looked like a lace parasol with blonde curls. Pop’s It-Girl, Ariana Grande in Loewe looked defeated, her eyes attacked by satin moths. The Crown’s Elizabeth Debicki wore a Dior chartreuse gown. She’s the face of the brand, and a token floral headpiece, looked tasteful and stately, like a minor, forgotten royal. What The Met Gala requires is a Princess Diana, a real fashion queen.