MET GALA Fashion Camp
What? The annual Costume Institute Gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is, bar none, the most over-the-top fashion extravaganza, putting its distant cousins (the Oscars, the Cannes red carpet, any fashion week in any fashion capital) to sartorial shame. Even this colourful spread does little justice to the festival – nay, explosion, of colours and glitter – that was this (lest we forget) fundraising dinner. The red carpet was fringed with photographers from around the globe as Hollywood and international stars mixed, mingled and bent at the knee to Vogue editrix Anna Wintour, chair of the annual Met Gala since 1995. Seminal theme: Before you flip further, to explain these outfits the night had a theme – Camp: Notes On Fashion. What is camp? Susan Sontag wrote in her essay, “Notes on Camp”: “The essence of camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” Several celebrities had a field day with the invite and tugged at the symbiotic strings of their designers (many of who accompanied their clients to the soirée) to go all out on the first Monday of May (the night of the hedonistic event). They believe: Camp-ers didn’t disappoint, be it Céline Dion (who channelled Cher), Jennifer Lopez (who channelled Cher) or Emily Ratajkowski (who, er, channelled Cher). No surprise that the surprise performer of the night was – wait for it – Cher. Boys will be girls: Be it pop star Harry Styles in a Gucci gossamer blouse (with pearl earrings), Jared Leto in a red ensemble studded with semi-precious stones (also by Gucci) and carrying a likeness of his own head as accessory, or Ezra Miller in Burberry (corset and a face full of make-up), many men let loose their inner diva. Taron Egerton in understated Salvatore Ferragamo on any other night would top a best-dressed list, but the actor set to play Elton John in the singer’s biopic disappointed tremendously on a night like this. Especially considering the access he had to the ultimate camp icon – the feathers! The wigs! Oh well.