It’s the Met Gala as never before: Anna Wintour seemingly sidelined, her successor an afterthought, most of the A-list absent.
And who can blame them?
Brought to us by Amazon Prime Whole Foods, aka Mr & Mrs Jeff Bezos, Monday’s gala promises to be a spectacle – for all the wrong reasons.
Consider that once upon a time, a state visit by the King and Queen of England might have been built around their attendance at the Met Gala.
After all, none other than Princess Diana made her debut here 30 years ago, in 1996, following her divorce.
She shimmered and slightly scandalized in a custom, deep blue Dior slip dress by John Galliano, accessorized with a seven-strand sapphire and pearl choker, and a pair of sapphire and diamond earrings, the latter inherited by Kate Middleton.
Galliano later talked about what Diana wanted to convey with her look that night.
‘We went to Kensington Palace and discussed drawings,’ Galliano said in the 2024 documentary In Vogue: The 90s.
‘I was trying to push for pink, but she was not having it,’ Galliano said. ”No, not the pink!” That was real, real fun.’
Jeff Bezos has effectively purchased the Gala for his blushing bride, that great vulgarian Lauren Sanchez, and it is she who will be standing atop the Met steps
On December 9, 1996, Princess Diana attended the 50th anniversary celebration of Dior at the Met Gala
Instead, Diana wanted to show the world, on fashion’s biggest stage, the life she was carving out for herself: free from royal strictures, independent, feminine, youthful and a bit rebellious.
Galliano himself said he gasped when he saw Diana arrive at the event: ‘I couldn’t believe it. She’d ripped the corset out. She didn’t want to wear the corset. She felt so liberated… The dress was much more… sensuous.’
Diana attended with the brilliant British fashion editor Liz Tilberis, then in charge of Harper’s Bazaar and co-chair of the event with Vogue’s Anna Wintour.
Back then, it didn’t matter whether a fashion house or high-end advertiser could afford one of the $350,000 tables – you had to have Anna’s consent to attend.
And even then, Anna also had veto power over what every guest wore – each look crossed her desk for approval.
Flash forward thirty years, and the Met Gala is a shell of itself.
Anna is no longer editor-in-chief of Vogue, having anointed a far less stylish, glamorous, talented successor in Chloe Malle, the nepo-spawn of actress Candice Bergen and late French film director Louis Malle.
Such a frump is Chloe that she recently took to CNN to deny reports that Anna had staged an emergency ‘fashion intervention’ for her.
‘Yeah, I dress different than Anna does, and maybe that’s confusing for people,’ Chloe said. ‘The fact that that leans a bit towards ‘if Katharine Hepburn was a librarian’ is just something people are going to have to deal with.’
Heresy!
Not that it really matters, because neither Anna nor Chloe is in charge of the Met Gala – which is reportedly struggling to sell tables this year – anymore.
No: Jeff Bezos has effectively purchased it for his blushing bride, that great vulgarian Lauren Sanchez, and it is she who will be standing atop the Met steps in what will surely be a cleavage-baring, tacky, overwrought look – because Lauren, it’s reported, will not be following the rules.
She will not, one surmises, be submitting her look for Anna’s prior approval.
Imagine, given that this year’s theme is, nominally, ‘Costume Art’ – but really, the theme is The Body.
Such a frump is Chloe that she recently took to CNN to deny reports that Anna had staged an emergency ‘fashion intervention’ for her
‘The Naked Body,’ ‘The Pregnant Body,’ ‘The Classical Body’ – all excuses for rampant exhibitionism.
Those Ozempic’d Hollywood figures will surely use this theme as the excuse it is to dress nearly nude.
Among the official ‘host committee’: The morbidly obese Lena Dunham, whose latest memoir is a screed against us all for judging – what else? – her body; the aforementioned dud Chloe Malle; the overexposed Teyana Taylor, last seen putting director Paul Thomas Anderson in a headlock while taking the stage at the Oscars; and Elizabeth Debicki, most famous for playing Princess Diana in The Crown.
The official co-chairs: Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, Beyoncé (who gave us one of the best Met Gala memes, standing in the corner of an elevator as her sister Solange beat Jay-Z leaving an afterparty) and Anna herself, gripping onto what’s left of her power with white knuckles.
How fitting that all of this, high fashion’s last gasp, is playing out as The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens this weekend.
Star Meryl Streep, who plays the Anna manqué Miranda Priestly, will not be in attendance.
Why bother? Meryl’s been flogging this sequel for months. She even appears alongside Anna on Vogue’s May cover – further proof of Anna’s diminished power.
Back when the original film was announced, plenty of actresses passed on it, so terrified were they of Anna’s wrath. They couldn’t risk exile from the pages of Vogue, or a vaunted Vogue cover, or an exclusive fashion show, or an invite to, yes, the Met Gala.
How fitting that all of this, high fashion’s last gasp, is playing out as The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens this weekend. Above, Anne Hathaway, Anna Wintour and Emily Blunt at the premiere
Same with the big fashion designers and houses, most of whom declined to lend clothes, accessories or branding. The late Valentino was a notable exception, appearing in the original as himself.
So how karmically poetic that now Anna needs ‘TDWP2’ more than the movie needs her.
How poetic that star Anne Hathaway has walked back her statement that she insisted the movie cast non-‘traditional’ models – meaning not underfed, rail-thin, GLP-1 addicts – and then walked that right back.
‘Nobody lost their jobs,’ Hathaway said. ‘In fact, it created more jobs… Isn’t it better when you see so many types of bodies up there?’
No, it’s not, because the Era of Ozempic has proven that body positivity is a lie, just like everything the Met Gala once claimed to represent: Good taste, elitism and restraint.
Wait – we must amend that! Reports have it that Meghan Markle, seemingly uninvited yet again, is ‘convinced’ that her invitation will be arriving any minute.
Now that’s some fashion world snobbery we can get behind.
