Beauty & Fashion

Met Gala 2019 – All Things Fierce

Met Gala 2019 - All Things Fierce

Met gala 2019 – All Things Fierce

 

What is the Met Gala?

The Costume Institute Gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is the biggest event on the fashion fundraising calendar. Founded by publicist Eleanor Lambert, the benefit was first held in 1948 to encourage donations from New York’s high society. In its modern incarnation, the most famous faces from the realms of fashion, film, music and art come together to raise money for the Met’s Costume Institute and celebrate the grand opening of its latest exhibition. The night is centred on the theme of the new exhibition.

The night begins with a cocktail hour, in which guests walk the red carpet and explore the new exhibition, before sitting down to dinner and the evening’s performance, which this year came courtesy of Cher.

 

What is the Theme of Met Gala 2019?

Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Costume Institute, has framed the exhibition around Susan Sontag’s seminal 1964 essay Notes on “Camp”, which posited different ways in which the concept could be construed. Bolton explains that he found Sontag’s writings — in a nutshell, she argued that camp is the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration… style at the expense of content… the triumph of the epicene style” — so timely with what we are going through culturally and politically that, “I felt it would have a lot of cultural resonance.”

 

What are the Co-hosts doing?

Co-hosts Lady Gaga, who orchestrated four outfit changes before even entering the ball, Harry Styles, who got his ears pierces to offset his custom Gucci look, and Serena Williams, who chose to accessorise her Versace dress with a pair of trainers, were among the first to show off their interpretations on the theme. A slew of the world’s most-famous faces then descended on the red carpet.

 

Women who took over the Met Gala 2019

Given that the “camp” theme was open to wide interpretation, the event was filled with a flurry of feathers, rainbow hues, gilded styles, statement trains, bold shoulders and extravagant headpieces.

 

Lady Gaga 

Lady gaga 2019 met gala

Image source – Billboard

Image source – Time magazine

Lady Gaga stole the show by giving an impromptu quick-change performance with four pink-and-black wardrobe changes on live television.

The Oscar-winning star teamed up with her former stylist Brandon Maxwell, who designed four custom pieces, revealed in a high-performance act on the pink carpet. Gaga started with a parachute-style hot pink dress, removed to reveal a black gown with asymmetrical bustle. Next was a hot pink slip, followed by a stripped-down lingerie look. The look was topped off with foil eyelashes and a giant hair ribbon.

She turned the red carpet into her stage, removing each layer in a performance with several back-up dancers and using props from giant phones to lipstick.

Watch her complete outfit change here.

Was it camp? Who knows, but it was a glorious performance. Even Wintour, who usually quickly disappears inside, couldn’t resist lurking at the top of the steps for the entire charade. When asked by a journalist how anyone else could compete, she yelled back: “They can’t!”

 

 

Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka chopra met gala 2019

Image source – Harper’s Bazaar

Priyanka chopra 2019 met gala

Image source – Cosmopoliton

Priyanka, who is attending the Met Gala for the third time this year arrived hand-in-hand with her husband Nick Jonas. The couple was dressed in Dior.

She was dressed in a grey-yellow-pink Dior gown, and her entire look appeared to be inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. She wore a spiky silver gown with her hair in tight and frothy curls, just like the Red Queen. Her eyebrows were painted grey and her eyes were lined with a white eyeliner.

 

Cardi B

Cardi B met gala 2019

Image source – Cosmopoliton

Cardi B Met Gala 2019

Image source – Cosmopoliton

Talk about peacocking. Cardi B made a grand entrance, with five men (including her stylist Kollin Carter) holding the hems of her down-filled, undulating Thom Browne tulle and silk organza gown that boasted a nearly 10-foot-long train trailing behind her. The dress, in an oxblood red hue, was decorated with hand-embroidered bugle beads and 30,000 burned and dyed feathers and took over 2,000 hours to create. It also featured 44-carat ruby nipples by the jewelry company Stefere. Pebbled leather platform brogues and a crystal-encrusted headpiece by milliner Stephen Jones finished off the look.

If there’s anything we learned from Cardi’s 2018 Met Gala look, it’s that she definitely knows how to follow a theme and own it. 

 

Saoirse Ronan

Saoirse Ronan Met gala 2019

Image source – Jared jr

Saoirse Ronan met gala 2019

Image source – Twitter

Talk about fiercely detailed.

Ronan was a dragon queen in Gucci at the 2019 Met Gala. She wore a custom red sequin gown with puff sleeves, featuring green and white iridescent detail and dragon embroidery.

Her stylist Elizabeth Saltzman paired the fierce look with gold leather platform heels and Le Marché des Merveilles jewelry, including lion head earrings with a fire opal and diamonds, cat earrings, a lion head ring with amethyst and diamonds and a Dionysus ring in 18-karat yellow gold.

 

 

Along with the celebrities mentioned above, there are many more designs that have wowed at the Met Ball. To see all of the gaudy, outrageous and over-the-top ensembles to grace the red carpet, take a look at our gallery, below.

 

SERENA WILLIAMS
Serena Williams Met gala 2019

Image source – ETCanada.com

Serena Williams, who is also co-hosting, arrived in a neon yellow gown – with matching Nike trainers.

 

GIGI HADID 
Gigi Hadid Met gala 2019

Image source – Hypebae

The model arrived solo, wearing a silver Michael Kors Collection jumpsuit with a custom hat made for her by Stephen Jones.

 

JARED LATO
Jared Lato Met gala 2019

Image source – EI Online

The actor and singer literally holds a severed head of himself at the 2019 Met Gala. Always one to push the boundaries, Leto most certainly steals the show with this over-the-top accessory.

 

HAMISH BOWLES
Hamish Bowels met gala 2019

Image source – Town & Country Magazine

From the dramatic feather boas lining his vibrant cape (which is decked out in colorful graffiti) to the lavender suit, he pulls out all the stops.

 

EZRA MILLER
Ezra Miller met gala 2019

Image source – Reuters India

Actor Ezra Miller shows off some very impressive (and unsettling) make-up art.

 

BILLY PORTER
Billy porter met gala 2019

Image source – Gettyimages

Billy Porter being Billy Porter, he had his own Broadway-level performance up his sleeve. He arrived like the red-carpet royalty he is, carried by six beefy men on a pharaoh’s throne. He then spread enormous gold wings like a phoenix.

 

DEEPIKA PADUKONE
Deepika-Padukone-Met-Gala

Image source – The live mirror

Bollywood star Deepika Padukone channelled Barbie in a large pink gown. There’s no such thing as too pink.

 

KATY PERRY
Katy perry met gala 2019

Image source – Billboard

The songstress stepped onto the red carpet as a human chandelier in three layers of electronic candles (one of which was a hat) surrounding her glittery silver Moschino dress.

 

CELINE DION
Celine-Dion-2019-Met-Gala

Image source – POPSUGAR Australia

Hardly a stranger to drama, Dion wore a glimmering gown inspired by the glitzy costumes of the Ziegfeld Follies. The entire ensemble is constructed from 18 panels, hand-beaded by 52 master embroiderers over a total of 3,000 hours and weighs over 22 pounds. But somehow she’s owning all that dress.

 

EMILY RATAJKOWASKI
Emily ratajkowski met gala 2019

Image source – Harper’s Bazaar

The model channelled the ultimate camp icon, Cher, in this bold interpretation of a Bob Mackie dress, complete with a winged headpiece.

 

KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS
Kardashians met gala 2019

Image source – Us weekly

Reality TV family the Kardashians were out in force for this year’s event.

 

Speaking at the February press summit, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele said: “This is a very important moment because we will collaborate on the creation of this fantastic exhibition that has a DNA that is related to my work, working to the expression of human nature… Camp is a beautiful word.” Michele also paid tribute to Karl Lagerfeld, adding, “I would like to seize this opportunity to thank Karl, who is no longer with us, who has been a great representative of fashion, and who had a great love for life and this kind of work.”

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