Here’s a take I didn’t know I had until just now: I kind of like it when the themes are amorphous and mean everything and nothing. Yes, it’s fun to screech “dress on THEME” at people when they get it wrong, but some people are going to resolutely wear a princess ballgown so I’m actually happier when there’s more to interpret, I’ve realized. 

 

It also just gives you so much to play with. 

Take, for example, the concept of “earth tones”. These are not colours I’m drawn to personally, but suddenly in this context you can see where they’re an expression of the whole thing. 

For example, I always want people to go all the way over the top. But then – then I saw Pamela Anderson.

The rules we scream about the Met Gala – that it’s not about being pretty, okay? – I feel like maybe they are suspended for Pam here, in her first ever Met Gala appearance, wearing custom Oscar De La Renta. 

 

She’s been kind of prettied against her will for so long, and, in a very rare move, is wearing makeup tonight which she hasn’t in some time, that I can kind of go, okay, yeah, I get it –a field of swirling wheat blown by the wind? Yeah, that’s a Garden of Time, of sorts (I mean, what is a farm but a huge, organized garden? Don’t @ me). 

I particularly like the tumbleweed that’s the exact same colour as her hair – someone thought about this in particular, how the golds and yellows would distinguish themselves. 

 

Then once you sort of get conceptual with it, you can kind of get into the idea of all the golds and the browns in the ‘garden’, and whatever the wind might stir up, well – then this appears: 

Elsewhere I saw a caption saying “Mindy Kaling dressed as a human flower” and honestly, I think that doesn’t do this look justice. Because, at least from the back, it’s delightfully weird. It’s Gaurav Gupta, who has shown looks like this on the runway – but none as full-on “let’s get weird in the dirt and the wind” as this one. 

From the front, it seems a little too perfect and pretty, and I much prefer the chaos from behind – though I suspect that has a lot to do with Mindy’s styling, too. Imagine she’d gone all Zendaya with the hair? Still, you can see how it lends itself to the idea that nothing in the Garden of Time is predictable… 

 

Which brings us to the incredible Chloe Sevigny. 

It has been clear for many years that Chloe Sevigny is not for everyone and has no intention of being for everyone. Thank God for that, just across the board, but particularly in scenarios like this one. Because anyone can be an interpretation of a flower, or a pond, or the wind, or an aforementioned field of wheat…

… only Chloe Sevigny can appear as a Victorian doll who was dressed and re-dressed by one or several 1800 toddlers, got lost in a mud puddle and has arisen to take her revenge and/or attend the tea party she was promised. 

 

She’s wearing custom Dilara Findikoglu, though it looks less like it was made for her, and more like it grew over and around her during the centuries she was lost in the attic or on the moors of whatever estate her noble owner dropped her on. 

I think she’s a little terrifying, and I think that’s exactly how we like it. 

The same cannot be said, though – or can it? – for our final entry in the “verisimilitude in earth and dirt” category. 

Behold the 2024 Met Gala look for Lizzo: 

First things first – the gifted people on That App have already made the funniest possible comparisons and/or similes to this look, I cannot go without acknowledging that she has been variously compared, in this outfit, to: 

- A basketball net

- Groot

- A coffee filter

- Lumiere from Beauty & The Beast

- Foreskin

These are, of course, not what designer Weinsanto had in mind. We know because of a kind of strange little Vanity Fair piece, which somewhat shadily invites us to “see the evolution” of the dress which the designer apparently calls a “vase dress”. 

I think what bugs me the most – well, okay, there are two things. 

 

First of all, the scale is WAY off. The flowers should be bigger and bolder if we’re doing the idea of a vase, or even an earthy canvas for them to grow – as it is, they’re barely noticeable. 

The other thing that bugs me is …you know Lizzo knows. But I would also venture to say that she knew. What I mean is – she chose this look knowing it was going to be A Weird One, and was all in for that, I would imagine. 

But I would also imagine that a woman who is acutely aware of her looks and her style and who frequently looks incredible, would become aware of it if her look was tipping from weird – which we love! Which we covet! – and into unfortunate.

The fit isn’t great, the florals are muddy, but she could sell it, if she bought herself in it. 

But her face here says everything – she doesn’t love it, she knows it’s a miss – and when you know it’s a miss, it is a very, very long walk up those stairs, particularly when you’re looking out the side of a tree/Groot. 

But it’s gonna be great when John Oliver wears a dupe of it for something soon, and I’m sure Lizzo will laugh too. Someday. While wearing a much better dress.