We’re going to do proper Best Dressed anointments later in the day, but for my money, the people in this piece are the ones who really collectively killed it.
I didn’t start out thinking the oxblood would be the key colour of the night, and I have to wonder if it’s partly to do with that amazing blue carpet – the colours are opposite each other on the spectrum, so maybe that’s why it was so satisfying to see them all. Or maybe it’s because the bar was set high, and early:
Brian Tyree Henry designed this himself, in collaboration with Orange Culture. And it’s awesome and he knows it! Imagine the confidence and being able to back it up!
Speaking of confidence:
Look, it’s a silhouette we all know. Yes, very well. And yes, I could go for her hair doing something different some day, but honestly? When you have an iconic look and you commit to it and you do it well, why change?
I also love how much is being made of her ‘no pants’. Sure, she has no pants, but A, she never does, and B, as she told Lala Anthony, ‘I’m too short for pants.’ It’s the second time in 48 hours she’s said as much, she stopped in at SNL to back up Quinta Brunson in a ‘short person’ opening. It was better than it sounds.
Speaking of short people, a small digression:
I don’t know if they saw each other.
I do know he wanted her to see him.
This is absolutely the face of “betcha you want to rip my decorative sash and delicate collar right off, don’t you?”. Not that the Met Gala seems like a night for debauchery or backsliding or reconnection. It’s a Monday, for the love of God. People have Zooms tomorrow!
Back to our regularly scheduled oxblood…
Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz took a maximalist approach to pinstripes. Objectively I am one of those people who believes there can never be too many stripes, so I’m inclined to like these. Or rather… any given one of them.
I do think it’s incredibly dorky but cute that they’re literally in matching outfits. Like of all the people we saw last night, these two earnestly cuddle up in bed with a sketchpad and expensive pencil crayons and plan what their coordinating outfits could be…
I’ve commented elsewhere about the puffer representation on the carpet and what it means and why – but it didn’t occur to me that it could be very intentional indeed: this outfit was by “Moncler with Vogue editor Edward Enninful” – so it’s overtly evocative of a parka because it’s quite literally designed by parka people!
LeBron James wasn’t in attendance, despite being a co-chair, due to a knee injury sustained last week. (I’m getting into sports gossip these days – someone tell me if I’m supposed to think this is sketchy or just one of those things where he thought he could all weekend until he realized he couldn’t.)
His wife Savannah came to represent him, and honestly that’s a hard room to walk into at all, let alone …alone.
But she really, objectively killed it:
Like, she’s going to go home and be very proud. Those are pretty flawless photos and honestly, how often does she get snapped solo in this particular way?
But we have many more places to go:
First, a surprise. I don’t know if anyone expected Patrick Schwarzenegger to go this hard or to do this well! Like, this is among the best outfits of the night for someone who wasn’t expected to do anything at all (otherwise known, as of tonight, as the Joey King Prize):
The whole look is really working, and really well done – Balmain by Olivier Roustieng – but what’s pulling it together? It’s those oxblood accessories, the shoes and that amazing, enormous clutch.
Oh, and also his date for the night, Aimee Lou Wood, who looks good and sleek and very 1970s gender-oblique, but truly, not too serious about the whole thing.
I didn’t necessarily understand the delight over her shoes and socks, but they had whimsy, and Teyana and Ego delighted over them when they spoke with her, so overall this is a lot of wins.
Rege-Jean Page is less wearing oxblood than he is… bright blood, I guess, otherwise known as true red – but it’s really, really working. This look, of all the looks we’ve seen, could so easily become a costume, but the scale of all the details on him is exactly right, and even though all the fabric is of one hue and/or bolt, we can distinguish all those details from one another. Another win.
On the other end of the spectrum in this colour scheme we find Bad Bunny. It’s possible this is a stretch in terms of the oxblood of it all. It is not, however, a stretch where sheer delight of looks is concerned:
You looked at that outfit and then, overwhelmed with the number of amazing details to take in, you had to look away, right?
The hat. The glasses. The jacket and shirt and tie in what I have decided we call ‘hue-layering’ – all of which in certain shots have, not quite a red tone, but a plummy brown one. It’s amazing.
Then, you think to yourself, I’m okay, I can take it all in. So you look at the gloves and the bowling bag and the boots – and it’s almost all too much again.
But it is merely an appetizer for the main event, the Best In Class for this category:
Look. At Doechii.
This look feels very in line with the aesthetic she’s been sporting, and while that sounds very ‘duh’, it’s not always possible for a fairly new artist to both match their own authentic image and land on the bullseye of the Met Gala Theme.
“But Duana,” you might say. “This is clearly an ensemble that is cream and grey, why is it in this piece, amazing though Doechii is?”
But I say to you verily that by wearing a ‘neutral’ like this, the pussy bow (actual term) knee socks and chunky Mary Janes actually stand out the most, and become the star. Again, this could all be due to the blue carpet, but it’s so good.
It speaks to wealth and warmth – a navy or emerald or purple could have a similar impact against the LV suit, but it wouldn’t give the same languid, wealthy in a home library vibe the wine-coloured accents have.
Plus it’s going to be a much-imitated Halloween costume, see if I’m right.
