The 2022 Met Gala is unveiled in all its A-list glory
From Kim Kardashian in Marilyn Monroe’s gown to Gigi Hadid in a latex catsuit and corset, this year’s Met Gala didn’t stick entirely to its theme | GALLERY
Kim Kardashian brought the mic drop moment of the 2022 Met Gala.
The reality TV mogul shut down the red carpet wearing the actual gown worn by Marilyn Monroe to sing happy birthday to then-president John F. Kennedy in 1962.
In the most anticipated arrival of fashion’s night of nights at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Kardashian revealed the crystal-smattered sheath by designer Jean Louis, her hair bleached blonde, and accompanied by partner Pete Davidson.
“This is Marilyn Monroe’s dress, it’s 60 years old,” Kardashian told Vogue, adding that when she first tried on the gown three weeks previously it was accompanied by armed guards.
Dubbed the “world’s most expensive dress,” the crystal-studded creation set a Guinness World Record when Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum purchased it at auction in 2016 for $US4.8 million ($A6.7m) - over $US5 million including auction fees.
It’s pre-sale estimate was $3m.
At the time, Darren Julien, president of Julien’s Auctions, explained the dress’s relevance and appeal: “That rendition (of Happy Birthday) has lived on for decades as one of the most remarkable events in her career and certainly one of the most storied tales in popular culture history – a moment in time squarely at the centre of the 1960s, Hollywood and Camelot.
“In the 20th century I cannot think of one single item that tells the story of the 1960s as well as this dress. It’s a new world record for a dress.”
Sixty years after Monroe’s appearance, Kardashian gave the dress its second outing.
“The idea really came to me after the (Met) Gala in September last year. I thought to myself, what would I have done for the American theme if it had not been the Balenciaga look? What’s the most American thing you can think of? And that’s Marilyn Monroe,” Kardashian told Vogue.
“For me the most Marilyn Monroe moment is when she sang Happy Birthday to JFK, it was that look,” she added.
Custom-made for Monroe for the 1962 event, the dress didn’t fit Kardashian on the first fitting three weeks ago, and Ripley’s would not allow Monroe’s gown to be altered.
Kardashian conceded that she “had to lose 16 pounds”.
“I was determined to fit it. I don’t think they believed that I was going to do it.”
Monroe had famously been sewn into the dress before taking to the stage at Madison Square Garden for JFK’s birthday serenade.
The nude illusion dress, whose fabric perfectly matched Monroe’s skintone, is covered in 2500 crystals, and originally created a scandal given how little it left to the imagination.
It also sparked rumours about Monroe’s affair with Kennedy.
As noted by Kardashian, “Nowadays everyone wears sheer dresses, but back then that was not the case … In a sense, it’s the original naked dress. That’s why it was so shocking.”
By today’s - and the Met gala’s - standards, it seems positively demure.
For richer, for poorer
Kardashian’s dress may have been the headline-maker of the event, but did it fit the dress code of this year’s gala?
No.
Did it matter?
The annual fundraiser for the Anna Wintour Costume Centre at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has become fashion’s Super Bowl, a spectator sport for those who prefer feathers to face guards, sequins to spandex – although you’ll probably see some of that, too.
This year marked part two of the Met’s fashion exhibition celebrating the history of American fashion, called In America: An Anthology of Style. The dress code for the gala was “gilded glamour and white tie”, with specific instruction to “embody the grandeur, and perhaps the dichotomy, of Gilded Age New York”, that particular period from the late-1870s to 1890s when industrialisation brought prosperity to the city.
That was enough to cause a backlash from some quarters before the red carpet even kicked off, coming at a time when inflation is heading skywards in the US and war is currently ravaging Ukraine.
Just like today, the Gilded Age was also a time of disproportionate wealth, in which many were living in abject poverty. If more attendees had observed the downside of that dichotomy, it may have made for more interesting viewing.
Of course, this is fashion escapism, eye candy for all of us who will never afford the $35,000 ticket (or make Vogue editor and event co-chair Anna Wintour’s in-crowd invitation list), couched in a fundraising event for the Met’s Costume Centre.
Had Kardashian worn Monroe’s gown last year, when the dress code was the more open-to-interpretation “American independence”, it would have made perfect sense.
That year especially there were plenty of other stars channelling Hollywood royalty from its Golden Age: Billie Eilish channelling Monroe in swathes of apricot chiffon, Kendall Jenner with a contemporary take on Audrey Hepburn’s makeover in My Fair Lady, and Emily Blunt as a modern-day Ziegfeld Girl.
But just as rules are made to be broken, Met Gala dress codes are made to be ignored – especially when your fame overshadows that of anyone else about to ascend the famous staircase at the Met.
To be fair, even Wintour seemed to ignore the event’s edict, opting for a delicately sequinned and embroidered Chanel column gown with feather-trimmed cape.
The so-called queen of fashion finished her look with a tiara.
Compared to last year, and considering the controversial theme, the political statements were surprisingly few.
Gabrielle Union’s was a subtle one. At first glance, her look was classic glamour – a plunging silver Versace gown, festooned with a huge red flower at the waist and a white train, which she said was an homage to trailblazing black actor Diahann Carroll.
Look more closely, and you might notice a couple of strands of red beads hanging from her updo.
“Because when you think about the Gilded Age and black and brown people in this country, this country is built off of our backs, our blood, sweat and tears,” she said.
“So we added these red crystals to represent the blood spilled during the accumulation of gross wealth by a few during the Gilded Age, off of the backs of black people and people of colour.”
Of course, it was unlikely from the outset that anyone would follow the dress code too strictly, lest the event look too much like a costume drama or, indeed, the new HBO series The Gilded Age (speaking of, where were Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon et al?).
But there were corsets aplenty, dazzling jewellery, bustles and panniers.
Katy Perry managed all of these but somehow forgot her skirt.
Co-host Blake Lively was an early arrival, making her entrance in a strapless Atelier Versace gown with an enormous bow around the hips akin to a bustle.
But – as we all know thanks to recent displays from Lady Gaga and Lil Nas X – an outfit isn’t always enough unless it actually does something.
And so, Lively was soon swooped upon by gentlemen who unfastened her bow and unfurled it down the staircase.
Gigi Hadid added a corset over her burgundy Latex jumpsuit, worn beneath an oversized quilted coat. The overall effect was of a Marvel villainess with anxiety issues.
Billie Eilish, oddly, took to the dress code more than most, in a Gucci gown with corset and padded bustle that used only upcycled materials.
“I just wanted to be as eco-friendly as possible,” Eilish told Vogue on the night.
Even some men, such as Lenny Kravitz, added a corset to their ensemble. Most opted for the more traditional cummerbund.
It was an interesting turn that while many men have chosen to push boundaries on the red carpet in the past 18 months, with only a handful of exceptions they stuck to more traditional paths this year.
Many dutifully followed the white-tie dress code, while others took the opulence of the period to heart adding capes and brocades, walking sticks and top hats.
Gucci designer Alessandro Michele twinned with brand favourite Jared Leto, right down to the matching hair clips.
Sarah Jessica Parker was another to take the dress code to heart, and make a historical statement, in a Christopher John Rogers bustier and crinoline skirt in oversized gingham, with a fountain-like feathered headpiece.
Parker worked with Rogers to create a look that paid homage to Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, the first black female fashion designer in the White House in the lead-up to the Gilded Age.
“She was a smaller designer, and someone who people don’t really talk about,” Rogers told Vogue.
“The idea was to highlight the dichotomy between the extravagant, over-the-top proportions of the time period, and the disparity that was happening in America at the time.”
Singer Erykah Badu nodded to that less-opulent side of the Gilded Age dichotomy in a patchwork coat and trousers by Marni, trailing colourful beads and topped with a matching hat to cover her high-piled hair.
Meanwhile, Nicky Minaj was a wardrobe malfunction about to happen, saying of her black feathered Burberry overdress: “The only unplanned thing about my look is my boobs popping out, because they made my cup size a little small.”
Heaving cleavages aside, Cara Delevingne opted to lose the corset altogether. Taking a more masculine approach – something a handful of women did with aplomb – Delevingne took offer the jacket of her Dior suit to reveal a gold-sprayed torso.
Gold, as per the theme, was visible in relative abundance, none more so than in Cardi B’s chain and charm-encrusted Atelier Versace sheath.
Silver, too, could barely be accused of taking second place given the number of shimmering dresses in the finish.
It would be hard to outdo Kaia Gerber in her cut-out Alexander McQueen gown, all body-skimming sheer-and-silver sequins and Lady Godiva hair.
Was this year’s gala a straggler in the history of the event?
Perhaps, but it didn’t stop any of us from watching.
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