2024 Met Gala Recap
Tiya Antony
Fashion News Editor
The Met Gala is held every year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on the first Monday of May and is noted to be fashion’s biggest night, but the Met Gala of 2024 faces a lot of understandable backlashes. The theme chosen for this year was ‘The Garden of Time’ to refer to J.G. Ballard’s sci-fi story. The co-chairs of the event were Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth who all made notable appearances.
Although there are various opinions of this year’s Met Gala being subpar, there are some fashion choices and attendees who garnered a lot of notable attention. Elle Fanning, an actress, wore a transparent Balmain gown. The fabric is covered in multiple layers of resin to have a glass-like appearance, resembling a crystalline flower. Bad Bunny also garnered a lot of attention for his black and red ensemble. The rapper’s hat and little black bouquet of flowers added to the theme perfectly.
Zendaya is a popular actress and co-chair for the Met Gala, wore Maison Margiela by John Galliano. The dress was a direct reference to the Christian Dior look he created in 1999, with a similar design, pattern, and makeup look. The blue and green gown featured metallic birds, berries, and a feather headpiece. Known to be an influential fashion icon of current times, Zendaya had a second dramatic look. The second look was a black 1996 Givenchy dress by Galliano. Zendaya worked with Law Roach to accessorize this dress with a headpiece of a bouquet with two dozen roses.
Mona Patel made her Met Gala debut in an Iris Van Herpen designed butterfly dress with mechanical butterfly arm cuffs. She is a businesswoman and philanthropist who founded Couture for Cause, a nonprofit organization, in 2017.
Alia Bhatt, international actress who works predominantly in the Hindi cinema industry, wore a Sabyasachi sari with floral detailing and a 23-foot-long train. Emma Chamberlain, most well known as a social media personality, wore a brown lace gown by Jean Paul Gaultier, giving a decaying garden aura to the red carpet.
However there has been a collective backlash against the 2024 Met Gala and the celebrities in attendance through social media platforms. The Met Gala is the ultimate display of wealth due to the high-priced tickets and the luxury designers who spend thousands on the outfits. The event took place at the same time as the Palestinians were forced to flee Rafah, so people are calling out celebrities who have been silent on the issue. The event made no statement about current events, even though designers and celebrities often make political statements with their fashion choices, and this has been observed at previous galas. It is important to consider the power of fashion when it comes to expressing values and opinions, and this has been a central discussion point after the 2024 Met Gala.
Contact Tiya at antonyti@shu.edu