The 2024 Met Gala is here.
Each year, fashion's biggest night out has celebrities and fashion designers flocking to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art for an evening of sartorial splendour to mark the opening of the Costume Institute’s latest exhibition.
This year, the exhibition titled Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion has lent itself to The Garden of Time theme, with stars including Kendall Jenner, Michelle Yeoh and Lana Del Rey in attendance.
“Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking,” Meryl Streep's character Miranda Priestly sarcastically said in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. The line, based on the inner workings of Vogue and its famed editor Anna Wintour who runs the Met Gala annually, feels like a relevant read of the 2024 red carpet and its attendees.
In interpreting the horticultural theme, a crop of starlets opted for floral creations.
Nicki Minaj donned Marni by Francesco Risso, in the form of a yellow minidress adorned with pink, orange and blue flowers; Amanda Seyfried sported a metallic Prada gown, dotted in frosted florals; and Riley Keough wore a semi-sheer Chanel gown with sequinned petals.
On the fantasy end of the spectrum, we saw a host of stars inspired by fairy tales, unsurprisingly Sleeping Beauty in particular. Jenner appeared to wear Maleficent-inspired black Givenchy by Alexander McQueen; Saltburn star Barry Keoghan dressed in a brown velvet Burberry suit, which looked like it had been lifted from the pages of a Victorian children's story; and Kim Kardashian wore dramatic corsetry by Maison Margiela.
Co-chair Zendaya walked the red carpet twice, with two distinct John Galliano looks.
Her initial arrival saw her in a deep blue Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano creation, fit for a fairy-tale villain. She later swapped her look for a black gown from Galliano's spring/summer 1996 Givenchy collection with a Philip Treacy for Alexander McQueen floral hat.
Cardi B took the crown for one of the most dramatic moments of the night. One of the final arrivals at the event, the American rapper shut down the red carpet in a voluminous black tulle Windowsen gown that covered much of the Met Gala entrance and staircase.
Sartorial craftsmanship also dominated the conversation on the night.
Model Gigi Hadid donned a custom-made white gown by Thom Browne, decorated with scattered 3D yellow roses, which took more than 70 people about 13,500 hours to construct, according to the designer.
“It’s always a privilege to watch Gigi come to life. She is a true talent who shines at whatever she does,” Browne told Vogue. “I wanted her look to embody the fragility and immense work that you see in [museum curator Andrew Bolton’s] exhibition, blooming on the carpet and into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
Co-host Jennifer Lopez wore a Schiaparelli gown, which she told red carpet reporters took “about 800 hours” of work and featured 2.5 million beads, in a bid for her to “be perfect for the Sleeping Beauties [theme]”. On the night, Lopez and Zendaya served as co-hosts along with Wintour, Chris Hemsworth and Bad Bunny.
A number of stars wore looks by Indian designers. Actress Alia Bhatt arrived in an ethereal blue sari by Sabyasachi, which was decorated with embroidery and gems that reportedly took more than 1,900 hours to put together.
Isha Ambani, daughter of Mukesh and Nita Ambani, arrived wearing a fishtail dress with a long train by Rahul Mishra, which transitioned from antique gold to a flower, butterfly and dragonfly embellishment on the train. The gown took more than 10,000 hours to complete, according to Isha's stylist Anaita Shroff Adajania.
Mindy Kaling, meanwhile, wore a pale champagne-coloured gown by Gaurav Gupta, with intricate and ornate pleats framing her face.
Nepalese-American designer Prabal Gurung was also a go-to on the night. Bridgerton star Simone Ashley arrived in a sequinned, cut-out dress by the designer, who also created a look for Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova. Speaking to Town & Country magazine, Gurung said he wanted to “blend the ideas of Sleeping Beauty and the Garden of Time, combining the delicateness and floral elements into a couture gown”. The outcome was a layered yellow and green dress, created alongside bedding company Boll & Branch, truly taking the Sleeping Beauty cue to heart.
