Sep 21, 20213 min read

The Met Gala 2021 review: Should the Met still happen?

This year’s Met was scrutinized by many. It was severely lacking; many celebrities were off theme and there was discourse over whether the new stars of TikTok should be invited to such a prestigious event. Amongst all of this, AOC wore a dress reading ‘eat the rich’, Cara Delevingne wore a top reading ‘peg the patriarchy’. Overall, it seemed the only person that got the theme on point was, nineteen-year-old model, Quannah Chasinghorse, who dressed in a native American inspired outfit. However, this year’s Met has been a turning point, bringing up conversations of class, fashion, and those who wear it.

Traditionally the Met Gala, is a ‘charitable’ event, which funds the metropolitan museum in New York city. Tickets are $30,000 a person and the social elites, celebrities, are invited for a meal and performances. There is a theme every year and this year it was ‘America: A Lexicon of fashion’. Interestingly enough, this year’s theme taught us a lot about American celebrities and what they believe to be American. Firstly, Kendall Jenner. There is no disputing the Givenchy dress inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s ‘My Fair Lady’, was beautiful. However, Hepburn was not American, she was Dutch with British citizenship. Where in ‘My Fair Lady’, a film about British class politics, is America mentioned? This lack of awareness of the film itself and assumption all classic films were created by Hollywood in Hollywood is a testament to American culture, believing everything good to be their own. Why not pick a film like, ‘All about Eve’ or ‘Some like it Hot’ which are both set in America and made in Hollywood’s Golden Age?

What this year’s Met also taught us is that celebrity’s normal people who got lucky and don’t have a clue what they are talking about. The best example of this being Cara Delevingne’s ‘Peg the Patriarchy’ statement. At first glance this ‘Girlboss feminism’ may sound like Delevingne was breaking down barriers that night. However, this is not the case when you factor in the implication that penetration means control and power in this instance which completely trivialises the message Delevingne was trying to make. After the pandemic, we learnt that celebrities and the social elite are more out of touch than they ever were and, in this case, Delevingne is contradicting herself.

For a room full of ‘creative’ people, the outfits were extremely disappointing. Billie Eilish was praised for her peach corseted Oscar De La Renta gown. However, it fell a bit short in its nod to Holiday Barbie and seemed more like a nod to Marilyn Munroe, which is a bit too much of an obvious pick for the theme. It was pretty but nothing amazing, it could have been much more exciting. Kim Kardashian slayed the theme, with her masked costume which represented how Kim’s body IS American fashion. This being true, nevertheless, it does show the slightly narcissistic traits that many of these celebrities have, this certainly wasn’t a humble outfit, but she definitely understood the theme.

AOC’s ‘Tax the rich’ gown fell on deaf ears but did start a conversation about events like this and whether they are distasteful. For the high fashion twitter, the event is the night of the year yet, has left a sour taste in the rest of twitter’s mouth as to if we should really be celebrating these displays of wealth and capitalist power in a time of such uncertainty. Everyone wanted to go back to normal after the pandemic, however, we’ve learnt a lot over the past year and sometimes change is a good thing. While the Met will probably continue, at least for the next few years, this year has really taught us a lesson that these people with all their money and fame, are put on a pedestal and become so far removed from society they are ignorant to the needs of people with less than nothing.

Honourable on theme mentions include, Debbie Harry in Zac Posen, Quannah Chasinghorse in Peter Dundas, Kaia Geber in Oscar De la Renta , Lupita Nyong’o in Versace, Frank Ocean in Prada, Barbie Ferreira in Jonathan Simkhai and Yara Shahidi in Dior.