As you may have heard, the Met Gala’s theme this year almost had nothing to do with “sleeping beauties” or “gardens of time.” Instead, it was going to be a retrospective of designer John Galliano, whose long-gestating career comeback is shifting into high gear, boosted by one of his longtime allies, Vogue’s Anna Wintour.
His Maison Margiela couture show in January was widely regarded by the fashion community as a work of genius. (The Cut’s own fashion critic-at-large Cathy Horyn wrote that “the show belongs with the greatest Galliano collections.”) The designer is also the subject of a new documentary, High and Low, that examines his influential fashion career and his dramatic coup de grâce — a series of drunken anti-Semitic tirades that led to his firing from his role as creative director at Dior in 2011. The film reminds viewers of Galliano’s immense talent and how he has tried to seek public forgiveness.
But in the end, as we’ve reported, the Metropolitan Museum’s leadership feared public backlash and put the Galliano exhibition on indefinite pause.
The red carpet, however, told a different story. Three of the most famous people on the guest list by any metric — Zendaya, Kim Kardashian, and Bad Bunny — all wore custom couture Maison Margiela by John Galliano looks.
Kardashian once again contorted her waist in an unfathomably tiny tube, arriving in a silver corset and silver mesh skirt that looked like a layer of flowers, leaves, and branches, embellished with mirrors, crystals, and pearls. Around her shoulders, she clutched a boiled-cashmere cardigan.
Zendaya, styled as always by Law Roach, wore a sage-green lamé and organza gown over an electric-blue and emerald corset, topped with metallic birds, berries, and leaves, according to a release from Margiela. Milliner Stephen Jones created the hand-painted feathered veil hat. Her look was a reinterpretation of a Dior spring 1999 couture look, according to Roach’s Instagram Stories. (Zendaya kicked off the Galliano theme this weekend, wearing a spring 1998 archival dress to Wintour’s pre–Met Gala dinner at her home Sunday night.)
Zendaya later marked the end of the red carpet by reappearing in another Galliano gown, one he designed for Givenchy as part of his spring 1996 collection. It featured a long, dramatic train and fitted corset, and she completed the look with a giant-roses-style bouquet of a head wrap.
Bad Bunny channeled the count from the 1962 J.G. Ballard short story “Garden of Time,” which lent the evening its dress code with his blue foam hat. He carried a wool flower bouquet and wore leather gloves and custom Tabi boots.
The first of the Margiela crew to arrive at the Met on Monday was Gwendoline Christie, who walked in the January runway show and brought a similar theatricality to the Met Gala red carpet. She wore a sheer silk tulle opera coat over a blood-orange silk velvet dress, cut on the bias, of course.
Galliano also dressed actor Adrien Brody in a double-breasted tuxedo, with Tabis, and Indian socialite Natasha Poonawalla in a white foam jacket and skirt wrapped in stretched stockings.
