EVEN THE PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS COULDN'T BURST THE MET GALA BUBBLE

Even the pro-Palestinian Protesters Couldn't Burst the Met Gala Bubble

At the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in Manhattan, Zendaya, Bad Bunny and Nicole Kidman stunned while other made questionable fashion choices

May 07th, 14PM May 07th, 14PM

While fires were being lit on Tel Aviv's Ayalon Highway Monday night after Hamas announced it would agree to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters made their way from Fifth Avenue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where the annual Met Gala was taking place.

The tumult did not make it past the secured flower pots stationed at the museum's entrance, and unlike other red carpet events held in the past year, which served as a platform for the guests to send political messages through their clothes, the green carpet draped across the Met's iconic stairs mostly housed human floral arrangements, dresses simulating nudity and two impressive rounds by Zendaya – with no yellow ribbon hostage pins in sight.

The annual Met Gala is a fundraising event held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. The institute is the museum's only self-funded department, largely thanks to this Gala, which last year raised nearly $22 million, compared to $4 million at a different fundraising gala held by the museum.

This year, the institute was celebrating the opening of the exhibition Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, comprised of 250 fragile clothing articles from the museum's collection, some of them hundreds of years old.

The exhibition dictated a somewhat amorphous dress code, the essence of which was musings on time, inspired by "The Garden of Time," a J.G. Ballard's short story from 1962.

The story centers around a couple of aristocrats as they attempt to defend their beautiful secluded mansion from an army who converges on it, by ripping out petals of mystical time flowers that send the army back and stop its advancement.

While the meaning of time in our part of the world is a slow dying that grips your throat and blocks your windpipe, for the Gala's ironed-out and Ozempic-ed guests, time means a completely different thing.

Some of the guests made statements about time's influence on clothes and fashion – like singer Tyla who wore a sandy, nude-looking Balmain dress made to resemble an hourglass (and held an actual hourglass to match, for those struggling with the reference), and actress Mindy Kaling in a dress similar in color by the designer Gaurav Gupta, which looked like a wilting flower (though it was an interesting piece of design, as she was walking up the stairs one couldn't shake off the question – how is she going to sit in her chair to have dinner?)

Others quite literally woke sleeping beauties: Nicole Kidman wore a stunning Balenciaga dress from 1951, which was reconstructed for her; Kendall Jenner wore a shiny sexy 1999 Givenchy set; and Zendaya walked the carpet twice, once in a Givenchy dress from 1996, and again in a breathtaking 1999 John Galliano for Dior gown, with elements of blue and green.

Zendaya wasn't the only one in Galliano: rapper Bad Bunny, one of the evening's hosts, wore a dark blue Margiela suit with emboldened stitches, a hat covered in flowers, a bouquet and tabi boots; Gwendoline Christie was clad in a red velvet dress with a black mesh cape; and Kim Kardashian wore an impossible silver corseted dress by Margiela.

Many of the participants chose outfits featuring flowers in some capacity. On the good side of the garden patch were Gigi Hadid in a white, fish-like Thom Browne dress, which looked as if it was peeled in layers from a suit and decorated with yellow flowers; Demi Moore, in a three-dimensional Harris Reed dress; model Amelia Gray Hamlin in a yellow terrarium dress storing pink flowers by Undercover; Sydney Sweeney in Miu Miu; Dan Levy in a flowery Loewe suit; Jeremy Strong in a white Loro Piana suit (and a dangling crystal earring); and Josh O'Connor in a black Loewe suit and flower-patterned shoes.

The evening had its fair share of flops, like Cynthia Erivo in a Thom Browne set; Nicki Minaj in custom Marni; Aya Nakamura in a suffocating Balmain dress; and Demi Lovato in silver gift wrap by Prabal Gurung.

Some guests did go for the flower theme, but the results were somewhat wilted, like Sarah Jessica Parker, whose efforts were lackluster in a cream Richard Quinn dress with a matching oversize Phillip Treacy hat, and Ayo Edebiri in a technically impressive flowery Loewe gown, which nevertheless left the impression she can't completely pull it off.

There were also those who took the dress code to the strange direction of nude-dresses, which were, for some reason, a main trend at the Gala. The long list includes one of the evening hosts, Jennifer Lopez, in Schiaparelli; Greta Lee in Loewe; Rita Ora in Marni; Emily Ratajkowski in Versace; Kylie Minogue in Diesel; Elle Fanning in Balmain; FKA Twigs in Stella McCartney; Pamela Anderson in Oscar De La Renta; and Doja Cat, who put the final nail in the coffin of her excruciating press tour over the last few days, by sending Guram Gvasalia to wait for her on the sidelines as she posed in a wet-looking T-shirt dress he designed for Vetments.

Lana Del Rey also went for a color similar to her skin tone in a Sean McGirr for Alexander McQueen outfit, which included a sandy tulle gown decorated with dry twigs, which formed a sort of halo over her head (and caused for a painful altercation with Kim Kardashian, who had to steer away from the horns).

And a moment for those who looked perfect and belong to no category except their own: Amanda Seyfried in a silver Prada dress made for her from remnants of satin fabric used for their Spring 2009 collection, and Ariana Grande in a pearl Loewe gown.

Those who didn't match the theme and looked out of place: Dua Lipa in a strange Mark Jacobs getup, and Sarah Paulson in an overdone Prada bow dress.

And the night's most extra, with eight security guard constantly having to fix her gown's ridiculous ends: Cardi B in Windowsen.

2024-05-07T11:28:26Z dg43tfdfdgfd