And that’s a wrap! Thank you for following along our live coverage of the 2023 Met Gala.
Although it was a controversial choice, a Karl Lagerfeld-themed Met Gala solicited, in my estimation, some of the most exciting looks at the event since at least the designer’s passing in 2019.
Lagerfeld had one of the longest careers in contemporary fashion history, but although guests could have drawn from a six-decade oeuvre (well, perhaps not all that Fendi fur), two distinct periods stood out.
The first is a gift for people who love fashion: Chanel in the early 90s.
This is when Lagerfeld was at his most playful with Chanel’s house codes, taking stuffy tweeds and pearls, signatures you would typically associate with judgemental and controlling Wasp grandmothers, and making them, well, sexy. He crafted corsets from tweed, paired box jackets with men’s boxers and put it all on supermodels who were allowed to (heaven forbid) smile on the runway.
Many designers interviewed on Vogue’s live stream tipped this era as a starting point for tonight’s custom made clothing.
This period was before the monumental sets at the Grand Palais Chanel would become known for. Back then, the pleasure was all in the clothes. That many of those who are now in positions of great power in the fashion industry came of age in the early 90s likely poring through old Vogues on the floor of their teenage bedrooms and student share houses, is probably not a coincidence.
Another interesting tidbit: as well as pulling archival pieces to dress their sample-sized starlets, Chanel actually remade some of their ambassadors’ looks, dressing Margot Robbie, Angèle and Lizzo in pieces not from but “inspired by” looks that appeared on the runway between 1991 and 1995. Lizzo and Robbie both looked exquisite. Typically for Lizzo and atypically for Robbie’s ambassadorial appearances in Chanel, they both looked thoroughly themselves.
The other aspect of Lagerfeld’s legacy on abundant display was both more obvious and more diffuse: the designer’s tendency, in later years, to shamelessly self-promote. Lagerfeld collaborated with plush toy companies to make dolls of himself and emblazoned his image on T-shirts, handbags and bottles of Diet Coke. The line that still bears his name is, essentially, a costume version of the designer’s personal aesthetic (barring his delightful Yohji Yamamoto era in the late-1990s).
This tendency to make oneself a cartoon character, to winnow one’s personhood into a brand, feels right at home in the contemporary fashion landscape – and media in general. It loudest in Jeremy Pope’s spectacular Karl-face train (custom Balmain); and a little off-pitch in Vera Wang and Lily Collins’ matching sequin Karl skirts. Perhaps most of all, it manifested in the things that went unsaid about Lagerfeld on a night where the brief was reportedly to keep comments strictly positive. Branding yourself is as much about the complex things you don’t mention as the simple parts you show.
Then there was Lil Nas X, a standout not just because he wore the creation of makeup artist Pat McGrath rather than a designer, but because his look touched on a different aspect of Lagerfeld’s legacy. Yes, there was the Choupette of it all (and he did do a much better cat than the others who tried) but there was also a combination that makes the best fashion thrilling: meticulous detail, with every crystal and pearl in place, and also very funny. Though much of Lagerfeld’s wit is now seen for what it is – punching down – you cannot deny the man had a sense of humour.
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