Opening of ‘the dressed body’ show inspires Beyoncé, Kardashians and Skepta, as others pay tribute to fashion moments in art history
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wo assets the modern 1% love to show off are their designer wardrobes … and their expensive bodies. The Met Gala opening of an exhibition about “the dressed body” presented an opportunity to do both, and it proved irresistible. The evening raised a record-breaking $42m (£31m) for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the lead sponsors Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos thought to have contributed $10m, and individual guests writing cheques for up to $1m in order to make the Anna Wintour-approved final cut.
The official dress code was “Fashion Is Art”. But the golden rule in fashion, as in life, is that those with the gold make the rules, and this elite crowd bent Wintour’s diktat according to their will. The red carpet was divided between looks that paid tribute to famous fashion moments in art history, and others that celebrated the body itself as a very modern masterpiece.
No prizes for guessing which half made the biggest splash. Just as the Costume Institute’s annual opening party red carpet always attracts far more attention than any of the exhibits inside, nipples, skeletons and cleavage dominated discourse on the night. This was one of the more spectacular Met Galas of recent years, the spotlight on sculpted bodies lending a Madame Tussauds vibe that spiced up the glamour. And beyond the clickbait, there were thoughtful interrogations of the is-fashion-art question from designers and the muses they dressed, bringing to life a rich best-dressed list drawn from the walls of the world’s great art collections.
