Some attendees at tonight’s Met Gala arrived as a duo, but many women—like co-chairs Jennifer Lopez and Zendaya, for example—walked the carpet without their significant others (Ben Affleck and Tom Holland, respectively).
Another such woman who opted to have a solo moment—where it was just her and the dress—was Sabrina Carpenter, who wore a floral-inspired gown by Oscar de la Renta complete with a black velvet bodice and a “voluminous, double-faced, draped satin bouffant skirt, the latter detail drawing inspiration from an orchid,” Vogue writes.
Carpenter’s all-but-completely-confirmed boyfriend, Barry Keoghan, was onsite at the event, though, and eventually met up with Carpenter on the famous steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Marie Claire captured the moment in the video below.) For his part, he was clad in a Burberry suit with an olive-colored velvet tailored jacket, a black pinstripe wool waistcoat, a ruffled silk poplin shirt, and tailored trousers, according to Vogue; he accessorized with a black wool top hat and black leather oxford boots. “His ensemble combined Savile Row elements with Victorian-era flourishes, inspired by the character of Count Axel in J.G. Ballard’s short story The Garden of Time,” Vogue reports.
Appearing together on fashion’s most celebrated night makes sense for the couple, who met last September at Givenchy’s spring 2024 show in Paris. (Clearly, they’re both lovers of fashion.) It took three more months for the pair to be photographed together in December in Los Angeles on a dinner date, and they were seen again the next month, again at dinner; their first official public appearance together happened in February at W magazine’s Grammys afterparty, even though they walked the red carpet separately.
Like the trailblazer known as Travis Kelce before him, Keoghan went international to support his girlfriend on tour, as Carpenter has served as the loyal opening act on Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour. Kelce has seen the tour on four continents and possibly counting (Swift resumes the tour in Europe in a matter of days), and Keoghan swung through Singapore to see Carpenter perform there when the tour made its stops there (a total of six, ranging from March 2 to March 9). That same month, Keoghan pulled another Kelce-style boyfriend move, sporting a friendship bracelet with Carpenter’s name on it at an Academy Awards dinner. He was also on hand as his girlfriend performed at Coachella weekend one in April, filming her as she took the stage. Just as Keoghan pulled a Kelce or two in the name of love, Carpenter pulled a Swift, changing the lyrics at the end of her song “Nonsense” during her Coachella set to pay homage to “one of Keoghan’s most infamous scenes in Saltburn, singing, ‘Made his knees so weak, he had to spread mine / He’s drinkin’ my bathwater like it’s red wine,’” Vogue reports, adding that the lyric incited “blood-curdling screams from the audience,” naturally.
Last month, Keoghan also not-so-subtly thirsted over Carpenter’s Skims campaign, adding further fuel to the already hot rumors of their romance.
We’ve come a long way “from furtive Los Angeles dinners to striding the Met steps side by side,” as Vogue puts it, and if a moment on the Met steps isn’t a firm confirmation of coupledom, we’re not sure what is, exactly.
