The Met Gala is my Super Bowl. Every year, I spend that one special evening in May hunched over my laptop with about 27 tabs open on my computer and scrolling through 3 social media platforms at a time, anxiously anticipating the outfits of the stars and the inevitable criticism of thousands of fashion blogs. If you’re not quite sure what this event is, it’s an exclusive fundraising event held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, marking the opening of that year’s fashion exhibit held at the Museum’s Costume Institute. The guest list includes around 600 of world’s biggest stars, and tickets to the event are priced at $30,000 (that’s more than our annual Burroughs tuition).
The Gala has become the most important night for fashion every year and serves as a platform for the world’s top designers to put together their most elaborate looks for the celebrities to walk the carpet. Each year, the theme of the gala is based upon the upcoming exhibit at the Costume Institute. This year’s theme was “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” No, camp fashion does not involve throwing on your old Potpourri t-shirts and Chacos and getting ready to walk the creek at Drey Land. American writer Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” emphasized its key elements as: “artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and ‘shocking’ excess.” Essentially, camp is the art of being extra, as Harper’s Bazaar puts it… think Cher and every John Waters movie.
I was thrilled by the announcement of this theme. If there was a year of extraness and wacky news stories, it’s been 2019. With every day’s news, I become more and more convinced that we truly are living in a simulation, so this theme fits perfectly. Met Gala attire is generally known to be over the top and wild, and this year promised to take it to a whole new level of weird. For the most part, the Gala did not disappoint. There are a million different articles out there from a million different “fashion critics.” Since this particular theme is so fluid and up to personal interpretation, it’s incredibly hard for me to pick favorites and least favorites, but here are three of the looks I loved and three that just didn’t do it for me.
Let’s talk about Jared Leto. If you had told me that someone had entered the Met Gala with a Gucci recreation of their own head, I would have cracked some joke about them trying to recreate Michael Scott’s paper-mache Halloween costume, but in my opinion, Leto one-upped the world’s best boss. Donned in a diamond studded long, red turtleneck dress and carrying a 3D replica of his own head, Leto hit the camp nail right on the head.
As usual, Lupita Nyong’o killed it. Her gown, designed by none other than Donatella Versace, was a mix of crystal stars and metallic macramé, complete with a sculpted ruffled jacket and matching fan, both made up of a rainbow of colors. Golden combs sat in her hair throughout the night, a very camp touch. Lupita, if you’re reading this, I love you.
I would be remiss not to mention Billy Porter. The man literally entered the Gala by being carried in true pharaoh fashion by six men clad in Egyptian attire. If you don’t know who Billy Porter is, he’s a Broadway sensation, known most for his role as Charlie in Kinky Boots. He’s also a successful recording artist, and his looks always go above and beyond. If the entrance wasn’t enough, Porter wore a jeweled catsuit complete with wings and a gold headpiece, designed by The Blonds. Crowns off to you, Billy.
One of the most talked about looks this year was Katy Perry’s Moschino chandelier dress by Jeremy Scott, one of the undisputed kings of avant-garde. Weird and shocking as it was, the look just didn’t cut it for me. Camp isn’t costumey or kitschy, and although I love Jeremy Scott, I feel like this dress was more attention seeking than truly camp. Sure, it’s extra, but for me, it’s just not the right extra.
Everyone tends to hail supermodels as the world’s best dressed and most fashion forward. While many of the models followed through with this promise, Hailey Bieber fell short of the mark for me. Dressed in a backless, bodycon, bubblegum pink Alexander Wang gown, it was like she was trying to blend into the pink carpet. If the point of camp is to stand out, I’m not entirely sure what Hailey was doing.
While I’m on the topic of supermodels, it’s impossible not to mention the Kardashians. You’ve probably heard about how Kim K couldn’t even sit down in her dress and had to take a van to the event, holding onto the handrails the entire time. The incredibly tight, beaded, latex dress was designed by Thierry Mugler, who broke a twenty year hiatus to create this piece. While camp is very up to personal interpretation, this dress looked like what Kim would wear to every other red carpet event. Nothing about it was flamboyant or special, and actually hurt my insides to look at. And for the record, Britney did it better in the Toxic music video… but that’s none of my business.
Note from editor Adina Cazacu: “camp” was created by the queer community. The first uses of the word come from 1800s when it was used to describe cross-dressers of the time. Since then, the community has largely accepted the term, using “camp” to both accentuate and blur the divisions of gender identity. So, to what extent did the celebrities at the 2019 acknowledge these roots and celebrate the history of the queer community? I’d agree with Lucy that attention-grabbing or basic outfits like Perry’s and Bieber’s were disappointing, but not surprising. On the other hand, stars like Lena Waithe nailed it.