Met Gala 2024: Sleeping beauties and reawakening fashion

An exploration of the historic, re-imagined and haute couture at this year’s Met Gala. 

On May 6, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held its yearly Met Gala. The Met Gala is notorious for being one of the biggest fashion events in the world, featuring its legendary guest lists, iconic themes and stunning looks. It celebrates the intersection of technology and haute couture, showcasing various designers’ creativity and craftsmanship. The different approaches and interpretations of this year’s exhibit, dress code and zones show that self-expression reigns above all. 

Each year, the Met Gala showcases different approaches to fashion, with this year’s exhibit being, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” This exhibit explores how technology can be used on garments that are too fragile to be worn again. The carpet’s theme “The Garden of Time” honored the fragile garments.  

Stars from all disciplines attended this year’s Met dressed by some of the world’s most well-known designers for this year’s dress code, “The Garden of Time.” The Garden of Time is centered around three main zones: land, sea and sky. With Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez and Zendaya being appointed as this year’s co-chairs, they took part in event promotion, and planning its theme, dinner and performances.  

Wendy Yu’s Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton, said in an interview with Vouge that this exhibition, “is very much an ode to nature and the emotional poetics of fashion.”  

But who successfully contributed to this ode? To name a few: 

Anna Wintour, arguably the biggest name in fashion, and editor-in-chief of Vouge, wore Anna Loewe, which seems to pay homage to an 1889 Charles Fredrick Worth cloak that was displayed at the exhibition. The dark, floor-length cloak featured flowers against a black canvas.   

Zendaya dawned two looks for the night. The first was a re-imagined 1999 couture Dior featuring elaborate details including a hummingbird. The second was a never-worn 1996 Givenchy, with an Alexander McQueen bouquet on her head. 

Emma Chamberlain wore a re-imagined Jean Paul Gaultier lacey couture with an ensemble that almost looked as if it was decaying. Playing with the theme of time, figurative and literally, the dress took a whopping 640 hours to create. 

Tyla wore Balmain, following the theme of “The Garden of Time,” with her dress which was literally made of sand. The dress was so fragile that the singer was unable to talk, leading to alterations done by Balmain designer Oliver Rousteing, cutting off the bottom of the dress.  

Kendall Jenner wore a 1999 Alexander McQueen look for Givenchy haute couture that has never been worn, making the dress nearly as old as the model herself.  

Notable mention, Stay Kids, become the first ever K-pop group to attend the Met Gala together as a band. Stray Kids members, Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N arrived in custom Tommy Hilfiger suits marking another historic moment for fans worldwide.  

This year’s Met Gala turned heads and invited both old and new techniques in fashion design. Who was your favorite? 

‘Featured Image’ Stray Kids prepared for the 2024 Met Gala. Photo taken from Tommy Hilfiger’s Instagram.