It’s Met Gala Season again! It certainly feels like we just had one and it’s because we did. The theme this year is complicated because as someone on TikTok expanded, the theme and the dress code were different. The theme was an Anthology of Fashion and the dress code was Gilded Glamour White Tie. Of course Gilded Glamour was a tie to the Gilded Age, America's most forgotten era of history. I’m amazed at HBO’s viral marketing abilities. For those who don’t know and aren’t avid fans of the most recent addition to the HBO canon, The Gilded Age was a period of extreme growth and wealth right after Reconstruction and before the Turn of the Century.
In Vogue’s own words “The 2022 Met Gala will ask its attendees to embody the grandeur—and perhaps the dichotomy—of Gilded Age New York. The period, which stretched from 1870 to 1890 (Mark Twain is credited with coining the term in 1873), was one of unprecedented prosperity, cultural change, and industrialization, when both skyscrapers and fortunes seemingly arose overnight.” It’s a little vague and one can embody a period of history without dressing exactly like it. The term “On theme” has more variances this year than it has in years past. It's more open to interpretation and argument. Many outfits come with anecdotes that better explain their connection. Also technically anyone dressed to White Tie standards is on theme. This gives a lot of boring suits a pass.
The difficulty in judging will not stop from judging though. Here is my criteria:
Each celebrity will get a score out of 5 in three categories.
1.How dressed to theme they are
2.How good they look in general
3.How good they look based on how famous they are (the Kacey Musgraves rule)
Theme
Listen if you fit the theme you fit the theme. No one can hold that against you if you do follow basic instructions.
Look
It doesn’t mean I have to like it! You can get a 5 on theme and a 1 on looks! You can be dressed to theme and still be ugly and I will be holding that against you here.
Fame
Kacey Musgraves nailed her camp look in a way only Kacey Musgraves could. Had Lady Gaga done Moschino Barbie I would be underwhelmed, but she didn’t. Rihanna gets a five in this category every year (except this one) The Kardashian-Jenners can do well in this category because I have low expectations for them. Random models do poorly because they’re not that famous and therefore have nothing to lose and insist on making boring choices anyway. The Met Gala is about knowing your place in the food chain. Kissing the right rings (and being young, rich, white, and skinny) to get where you are.
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