Flowery fashion, butterflies and ‘naked dressing’ during the Met Gala, or the ‘Oscars of fashion’

Many exuberant fashion creations full of flowers and branches showed up at the Met Gala in New York last Monday evening, a fundraising evening where American stars celebrate the ‘Oscars of fashion’. Because the dress code for the Metropolitan Museum’s annual fashion gala party was this year The Garden of Time (‘The Garden of Time’), based on a 1962 short story by science fiction author JG Ballard. In it, the main characters pick flowers to stop time.

Many stars and their top fashion designers took that garden-and-flowers theme literally, according to the BBC. For example, singer Lana del Rey appeared with real hawthorn branches around her head, from which hung a veil that turned into her corset dress made of silk and tulle, also full of thorny branches by Seán McGirr of fashion house Alexander McQueen.

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Extinct butterfly

Singer Nicki Minaj was all flowers with colorful flower sculptures on her shoulder and over her yellow dress. Colorful floral patterns dominated dresses from Queen Latifah, Erykah Badu, Gigi Hadid and Demi Moore.

Actress Uma Thurman honored an extinct blue butterfly, the American Xerces Blue, on her shoulders: blue like the actress’ eyes, according to fashion designer Tory Burch. Actress and singer Zendaya stole according The Guardian the show with her hat full of real flowers and long black dress from Givenchy. There were also non-floral takes on classic dresses, like Nicole Kidman’s enormous black and white dress, or Cardi B’s layered black dress.

Men with flowers

Sometimes non-floral fashion creations were combined with a carried bouquet of flowers or flowers, such as rapper Usher, with a black cape and hat, carrying a red rose.

Or rapper Bad Bunny, one of the gala hosts, who wore a black rose to match his black suit and black hat, inspired by Renaissance menswear, designed by Maison Margiela.

That historical fashion quote also refers to the spring exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum’s fashion department, ‘Sleeping Beauties: reawakening Fashion’, where vulnerable, rarely shown fashion pieces are shown. That was also the impetus for the Met Gala’s garden-and-floral dress code, intended to raise money for the museum’s fashion department.

Black was also the rose that the American singer Camila Cabello, dressed in a long sequined dress, carried, but which was frozen in a huge block of ice as an ice-cold handbag.

Paradisely naked

The almost nothing-to-the-body fashion trend, “naked dressing” according to The New York Times, like singer Rita Ora dressed in just a beaded dress (and flesh-colored bodysuit) from Marni and rapper Doja Cat who appeared dripping in just a long wet white T-shirt from Vetements. That (almost) naked fashion trend fits in with the Met Gala 2024 dress code, if you consider the nudity as paradise, the fashion in the Garden of Eden.

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