This was the night the Met Gala brought Marilyn Monroe back from the dead. If any lingering doubts remained about the power of the night as a force in American popular culture, they were silenced when Kim Kardashian stepped on to the red carpet wearing the very dress Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to JFK in 1962. Unworn for the intervening 60 years, the dress was fashion as holy relic, fashion as green-screen magic, fashion as skin-to-skin contact between screen goddesses from two very different centuries.
Reports of the demise of dressing up have turned out to be greatly exaggerated. The Met Gala is fashion’s biggest night of the year. Returning to the traditional first-Monday-in-May slot on the social calendar for the first time in three years, this year’s party made it abundantly clear that the fashion world is not remotely chastened, dimmed or otherwise humbled by the pandemic. From Katy Perry as a hamburger to Rihanna as the pope, the party has given us the most unforgettable celebrity looks of the past decade, and this year’s event showed no sign of slowing down.
