Last night’s Met Gala, titled “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between,”celebrated Japanese designer Rei Rei Kawakubo, who is widely admired for her artful label Comme des Garçons as well as global retail concept Dover Street Market.
As much fanfare and publicity as the event’s red carpet garners, there are inevitably debates around whether or not the featured celebrates followed the theme. As well, among more casual observers who are more accustomed to Hollywood red carpets, there is often push back on outfits that don’t follow traditional red carpet dress codes.
As to the first debate over the theme, it’s not known how much show producer Vogue magazine pushes for celebrities to be on concept. It appears with this event, it tapped very specific individuals (Katy Perry, Rihanna and Helen Lasichanh) to wear Kawakubo’s most avante garde pieces. As well celebrities are often there representing labels, which are using the event as a marketing opportunity to represent their own message. Case in point face of Coach, Selena Gomez, whose feminine white gown and ladylike box purse was meant to speak to Coach customers, not fashion editors. In the case of Kim Kardashian, she chose the moment to make a post-Paris robbery, anti-flash statement about living a simpler life, more focused on her family.
That said, rather than fight the tides over who did the best job of following the rules, we’ve broken our best dressed list into four categories. Check out our faves below.
On concept: Rihanna, Katy Perry, Michele Lamy and Helen Lasichanh all wore Comme des Garçons and looked amazing.
Edgy: Michelle Monaghan in Paco Rabonne, Aymeline Valade in Marni, Cara Delevingne in Chanel, Solange in Thom Browne, Sasha Lane in custom H&M, Priyanka Chopra in Ralph Lauren, Jourdan Dunn in custom H&M and Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen (in their own designs we presume).
Traditional: Jennifer Lopez in Valentino, Ruby Rose in Burberry and Gisele in Stella McCartney
Best-dressed men: Future in custom H&M and Virgil Abloh, who wore his own label, Off White with Comme des Garçons plus managed to mix in a stunt by wearing his as-of-yet-unreleased collaborative Jordan sneaker.
Check out all of the looks below.
Grimes in Proenza Schouler as designed by Jack McCollough & Lazaro Hernandez
Rita Ora
Ruby Rose & Donald Glover in Burberry
A$AP Rocky & Ashton Sanders, both in Calvin Klein
A$AP Rocky & Gwyneth Paltrow, both in Calvin Klein
Sasha Lane in custom H&M
Lena Dunham
Kim Kardashian in Vivian Westwood
Lil Yachty
Future & Jourdan Dunn, both in custom H&M
Luka Sabbat
Lupita Nyongo in Prada
Kerry Washington in and with Michael Kors
Cara Delevingne in Chanel Haute Couture
Jon Legend & Chrissy Teigen
Zendaya in Dolce & Gabbana
Alexander Wang, Bella Hadid wearing Alexander Wang and Celine Dion
Gigi Hadid in Tommy Hilfiger
Madonna in Moschino
Rihanna in Comme des Garçons
Hailey Baldwin
Ashley & Mary Kate Olsen
Kendall Jenner in La Perla
Lily Aldridge in Ralph Lauren gown and Balenciaga boots
Rick Owens & Michele Lamy
Mary J. Blige in La Perla
Frank Ocean
Cassie & Sean Combs
Nicki Minaj in H&M
Zoe Kravitz
The Weeknd in Valentino & Selena Gomez in Coach gown
Migos
Donatella & Kylie Jenner in Versace
Jaden Smith in Louis Vuitton
Priyanka Chopra in Ralph Lauren
Solange Knowles in Thom Browne
Jennifer Lopez in Valentino
Halle Berry in Versace
Grace Coddington in Louis Vuitton
Lala Anthony
Sofia Richie in Topshop
Tracee Ellis Ross
