Stars turning fashion into art at New York’s annual Met Gala
“Fashion is Art” was an apt theme for this year’s Met Gala in New York, the annual fundraiser for the city’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
The gala’s known for its extravagant fashion and high-profile guests and Monday night’s event did not disappoint.
Co-chair Beyoncé, wearing a crystal-embellished skeleton-motif gown, made a dramatic return to the red carpet after a 10-year absence.
The Grammy winner and her husband Jay-Z and daughter Blue Ivy stopped to pose together on the Metropolitan Museum of Art steps.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka, meanwhile, wowed in a dramatic white Robert Wun dress featuring exaggerated should and red feathers.
To complete her outfit, she wore two-toned red gloves. A similar look by Wun sits inside the Met’s Costume Institute exhibit, “Costume Art”.
On the carpet, Osaka opened her dress and removed her headpiece for a grand reveal underneath – a sleek red beaded gown embellished with the human anatomy.
Fellow Met Gala co-chair, Anna Wintour, seen as the most powerful woman in fashion publishing, chose a mint green outfit with a feathered cape.
Other co-chairs of the evening Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams chose more subdued glamorous looks.
The tennis star wore a sparkling black gown in homage to a painting of herself done by Robert Pruitt for the National Portrait Gallery.
And Lauren Sánchez Bezos wore a form-fitting Schiaparelli gown, which she told Vogue was influenced by John Singer Sargent’s 1884 painting “Madame X”.
She and her husband, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, were the first private sponsors of the Met Gala since 2018, reportedly donating $10 million.
This led to calls for a boycott of the event in protest over wealth inequality, alleged worker exploitation at Amazon, and tax evasion.
Over the weekend, activists projected videos onto buildings around New York City, including Bezos’ apartment near Madison Square Park.
