Met Gala 2014: Red carpet trend report, from Beyonce’s lace and Rihanna’s crop top to Lupita’s feathered tassles

It’s the Oscars of fashion, so they say, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art annual gala fundraiser. For the Costume Institute’s summer exhibition “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” about America’s own British-born couturier (at his career height in the post-War mid-century with clients such as Mrs. William Randolph Hearst and heiress Millicent Rogers), all of New York, celebrity, model and designer boldface turned out in their finery.

The edict? For the $25,000-a-plate affair, it was a dress code of white tie for gentlemen, presumably because of British-born event doyenne (oh and Vogue editor-in-chief and Conde Nast creative director) Anna Wintour’s Downton Abbey fantasy of liveried foot soldiers at every turn. If she ever had a cameo the show, you just know she’d be in cahoots with Thomas. Accordingly, London-based Turkish-Canadian designer Erdem (Moraglioglu) instagrammed a photo of himself getting ready in Gieves & Hawkes white tie, ever the accommodating Canuck.

Four errant pigeons made their way into the red carpet area (didn’t they get Anna’s memo?) but what did everyone else wear? Tune in below for our trends round-up…

THE ICE QUEENS

Anna Wintour herself, the hostess who rules with the mostest iron fistest, arrived first: in FW 2013 Chanel haute couture. With illusion net neckline, it is a dress festooned with petal-like fabric and then given an allover black lattice pattern (at a distance, it’s little as though Debbie Travis had gotten at her with a stencil and a can of spray paint)

Daughter Bee Shaffer was in tow and donned a satin one-shoulder ice blue gown that erupted in stiff white net, very reminiscent of the Charles James gown in the foreground of Cecil Beaton’s famous parlour room 1959 photograph (which we’ve seen ad nauseamleading up to the Costume Institute opening). Neither wore evening gloves.

A couple of starlets also opted for that storybook palette. Hayden Panettiere wore Dennis Basso satin florals and Suki Waterhouse’s gown was a spiky tiered gown by Burberry. Another starlet in a very short, ice-skating dress length? Elizabeth Olsen. How short is too short for a glam red carpet?

BLACK & WHITE DRAMA

Gala co-chair Sarah Jessica Parker is always all-in for these sorts of events. We love how game she was with last year’s Punk mohawk headpiece. For better or for worse. This year she opted for Oscar de la Renta, a black bodice and petal-like peplum with voluminous white skirt (and a cage-motif panel in the back of the skirt). Ever proper, SJP donned the opera-length gloves of the white-tie dress code.

That said, two things stick out on this busy, busy black and white dress. One: there is a red signature, in case you missed it, on the back of her skirt. The designer Oscar de la Renta signing his name to the dress, writ large (the same logo signature from the carton of his perfumes, for example). Now, I get that this SS14 has had a number of designers incorporating their names into their clothing — Alexander Wang, for example, in laser-cut tops. But if not tongue in cheek about branding and the sponsored red carpet dress takeover, isn’t it just tacky?

And not just for SNP but generally, in terms of Charles James whose expert pattern-drafting and complex sculpting skills are on display just inside the red carpet, all the very, very similar to James dresses beg the question of where the homage stops and a pastiche slash knockoff begins.

Then there was the simple black-and-white Mugler column worn by Virginie Courtin-Clarins, one of the it-girl Clarins heiresses (who also own the Mugler brand, which produces Angel and other hit perfumes). Simple? Sorry, we mean plain and uneventful. Unlike Zoe Saldana’s kitty-licious halter by Michael Kors. Another hit by Kors? The graphic black and white print on Canadian actress (like a blizzard on an inky-black night), gathered in tiered balloons along the back of the skirt. Kristen Stewart went for Chanel (she’s the face of the house’s campaign — in this case, the mostly petulant face) — a gown with feathers, an embroidered net skirt and a sweater.

At the other end of homage, Hailee Steinfeld matched her dramatic cat’s eye makeup to an equally sinewy black and white (and scuba-like) singlet cut gown by Prabal Gurung. The gown manages to capture some of the spirit of Charles James while also being entirely its designer’s own. Steinfeld’s colour scheme extended to her black and white clover button earrings, a wink at James’s most famous gown, the Clover. Ditto Stella McCartney (swirl of black and white over black trousers) and Vera Wang, both in their own creations, and Charlize Theron in black and white strapless — she wore a tuxedo jacket like a cape on her bare shoulders.

LADIES IN BLOOM
At the moment Charles James’ two main spiritual heirs are Zac Posen and (when they’re doing sculpted and not their clingy Miss Havisham-inspired wrecked beauty), Marchesa.

Accordingly, model Karolina Kurkova arrived in a midnight blue satin organza dress hand-painted with white blooms that in a few cases were mimicked by actual three-dimensional organza petals. It’s an undulating showstopper and one that probably requires its own standing limousine for transport. We cannot imagine how to negotiate this into any of the Met’s bathroom stalls.

Elsewhere, Aerin Lauder arrived in strapless tropical print taffeta Oscar de la Renta with hip peplums, Emmy Rossum’s Carolina Herrera is what you would expect from the society dresser — albeit in vibrant yellow and wine — and Ivanka Trump wore poison-green Oscar de la Renta jacquard with abstract, painterly blooms to Katie Holmes’ embellished, crunchy crinkled saffron by Marchesa (the tousled hair was perhaps a bit rumpled for the artfully-rumpled dress). Jennifer Lopez did magenta chiffon, first wound and wrapped halter-style then around her neck, with was further festooned in a bolero of blooms. She would not be out-festooned! But then, she was — by Sari Mercer in a blush pink embellished gown — embellished in bands on the skirt, the sleeves and the bodice. Sorry, J.Lo — better gardening next time, perhaps at the Chelsea Flower Show?

THE GENTLEMEN

It wouldn’t be the Met Gala without a few peacocks, most of whom fulfilled Wintour’s wish of fancy dress. Gala co-chair Bradley Cooper opted to accessorize not with his usual shadowy stubble, à la Don Johnson, for example, but with a full beard. Peak beard, you might call it. At least he wore white tie? 

The white tie and tails interpretation by Thom Browne, sported by Neil Patrick Harris and hubby David Burtka are probably the most controversial take on the dress code for the night (the former with eyeliner – a vestige of his Hedwig & the Angry Inchcharacter on Broadway now?). All-over stripes and argyle, both geometrically cut like cartoon illustrations rather than alone the body, and then as flood pants with visible ankle bone befitting the designer’s signature aesthetic.

Another Tom proved more popular: Tom Ford was tasteful down to the peak lapel, hulking bold shoulders and shirt studs — with a camelia in his buttonhole. Mario Testino wore his medals including a purple satin sash. Zac Posen wasn’t content with an ample white tie — he wore an evening cloak over his tuxedo. But Johnny Depp may have outdone even Posen in the dandy stakes: his white sit was accessorized with a pocket fob and pristine white spats, a caricature less Fred Astaire than Burgess Meredith’s Penguin onBatman & Robin

Alas, it pains me but David Beckham’s ivory white tie isn neither white tie nor even remotely debonair – it’s yellowish and ill-fitting trousers made it worse. Wife Victoria Beckham’s sculpted cream cylinder column (which is modern but looks like the bodice isn’t fitted properly) makes it look like they were trying to match. Nobody wants memories of their 2003 red carpet outfits. This is why it was Kimye on Vogue last month, you guys. Speaking of whom: Kanye West donned impeccable white tie with fiancée Kim Kardashian in a teal and black folded, tulip-shaped strapless. Still not as good as Baz Luhrmann’s white tie, but close.

We would like to show you this pairing of photographs of Chiwetel Ejiofor and of intellectual dreamboat Benedict Cumberbatch, both in the evening’s piqué white tie and waistcoat. Because it is Tuesday. You’re welcome.

SCULPTED

Kendall Jenner, in a strapless cream duchesse satin fishtail with panels in the front like girdle lines from Topshop, even had something of a Jamesian flange on the bodice. But sculpted through it was, a bit, Rita Ora’s ethereal yards-of-tulle glimmer dress (and matching arm and leg tourniquets, all by Donna Karan) may have been too demure a surprise for the tastemakers.

Jourdan Dunn managed to channel both the 20th Century designer and the 21st century sternum-baring trend in a canary yellow satin mermaid gown by Topshop. We are undecided about Dita Von Teese’s pale gown by Zac Posen, perhaps because the crimson-tipped hem seemed to have been dragged through a pool of blood at a crime scene.

Greta Gerwig went another way, with Olivier Theyskens’ more high-concept interpretation of Charles James in stiff architectural tiers, as did Naomi Watts, in Givenchy with sheer skirt and paillettes like scales, an a sleek low knot hairdo exposing an expanse of back.

Rihanna was also sculpted, and catlike rather than trussed in taffeta: in clinging jersey trumpet skirt and matching cropped top – with emphatic shoulders and mock turtleneck – by Stella McCartney. In optical white.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Beyoncé, working the mournful yet gorgeous black widow look with a bit of netting, like a birdcage veil, over her eyes and a robe-like dress cut down to there and covered in jet beading.

Rachel McAdams played it safe and boring in forgettable blush-pink but Nicole Richie did not disappoint. And that’s not our love for her My Little Pony purple tresses talking. In a sea of fluffy gowniness, the designer opted for an exceedingly slinky (bordering on Rihanna-level provocative) sexy dévoré velvet by Donna Karan Atelier. Also in the screen siren vein of Charles James’ earliest 1930s looks, Lily Aldridge wore a strapless gathered and ruched liquid silver lamé by Michael Kors

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley did a Karshadian-lookalike of short, stiff, leopard-print, chain and rather wintery leather and long sleeved Balmain by Olivier Rousteing. Shailene Woodley went with a Rodarte frock, an assemblage of wood nymph and off-the shoulder. And is Kirsten Dunst teasing us with hints of J.J. Abrams casting rumours? Because she wore the Death Star Star Wars print dress from Rodarte’s latest collection

Surprisingly, actress Laura Carmichael went out of character in a tweedy Ralph Lauren slipdress with lace hem and neckline, too short and bare (read: casual) to strike the right tone for the black tie, white tie event. On the arm of John Legend, Chrissy Teigen’s platinum Ralph Lauren — even with its gills of organdy ruffles around the halter and neck — was more on point.

Thank goodness for Solange and her 3/4 length sorbet orange dress — gowny but without all the hassle of a train. And for Gabrielle Union in that crop-top and skirt by Prada, tufted with feathers. And for Janelle Monae, whose pompadour was made of braids and topped an ornate blood-red cloak by Tadashi Shoji.

And then, there were a few of look-at-me, too-much standouts.

Kate Upton, in a Dolce & Gabbana scoop neck meant for Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, in a saloon madam western role circa 1954, with some sort of wilted floral headpiece and bits Y-necklace borrowed from Monica on Friends.

Lupita Nyong’o, recent Oscar-winner who can do no wrong on the red carpet. Correction: that headband at the Oscars was a slippery slope. It was the green tufted cage dress heard around the world. The headpiece? The brown underpinnings? The matching shoes? Someone tweeted a photo of Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2, as the “Girl for All Seasons” number of a trapeze dress made to look like a Christmas tree. Touché

Erykah Badu in Hey, The Hat Thing Worked for Pharrell
Maggie Gyllenhaall in Twister: The Gown
That left Kristen Wiig to take it away in a punctuation mark of a little black dress by Alexander Wang for Balenciaga — another rendition of the original archival Cristobal Balenciaga design from 1966 that similarly worn by Cate Blanchett last year (at the premiere of Blue Jasmine, in pink), but the slick hair, the lack of jewellery, the not trying too hard all added up to being ferociously chic