- Hello, my sweet pearls. Welcome to my annual Met Gala review, and today, it's May 2nd, it's the morning, so the Met Gala just happened last night, and I did watch the whole livestream like someone who has no life. With that said, though,
I do want to address the controversy of this year's theme, which is Karl Lagerfeld, and if you don't know
who Karl Lagerfeld is, he's this very contentious designer. He died in 2019, but he had a
long career working at Chanel. He's also worked at Chloe,
at Balmain for a little bit, at Fendi, and he also had
his own eponymous label, but the thing with Karl is
despite his prolific career, a lot of people do not like him, and do not feel that he
deserved this memorial tribute because of past comments that he's made. He's been extremely fatphobic, he's also victim blamed
at the onset of #metoo, and he's also made like
Islamophobic remarks, I believe, so there's just a long list
of transgressions with Karl. I think he's also made homophobic comments despite being gay himself, so yeah, Karl has said a
lot of very disturbing, very wrong things, and because of that, a
lot of people don't feel this was a necessary tribute. Unfortunately, I think with Karl, he was extremely well
connected and well respected by a lot of people who are in
charge of fashion these days, like he was a personal
friend of Anna Wintour, and you know, Rachel
Tashjian actually wrote a really good article
for "The Washington Post" that she published yesterday morning, and I'll link it in the description, 'cause I think it's worth the read, but she kind of goes through
Karl's transgressions, but also unpacks the
idea that Anna Wintour tends to support a lot
of people like Karl, so Anna Wintour has also
supported John Galliano, even though John Galliano
was literally fired from Dior for making anti-Semitic comments, so yeah, it's just like
a big, political ordeal. I do just want to address
that before we get started, because I think even though
I like to keep it light, I like to keep it fun for
these Met Gala reviews, I also think it's important to recognize like the circumstances and the context for what is happening, okay. Now, let's just get started on the looks, because there's quite a lot. I was watching this livestream yesterday with my best friend,
one of my best friends who lives in Australia,
and we were on FaceTime, and just watching the Vogue livestream and looking at all the photos that were getting released onto Twitter, and it was just really
fun, 'cause usually, it's a very solitary activity for me to watch the livestream. Also, she's so funny, because
at the beginning of the night, all these people came, and I don't know if I'm like also just not super, super, super plugged
in with the industry, but there were so many
people where I was just like, "I don't know who any
of these people are," and my friend, her name is
Ella, she was just like, "I feel like they just make up "new famous people every year," and I think that's so real. One of my favorite looks of the night, starting off super
strong, was Ashley Graham. I think actually this might have been my favorite look of the entire night. It's just a beautiful dress. It was designed by Harris Reid, who is this British fashion designer. Ashley also said on her Instagram that Harris took inspiration
from this Chanel Couture dress from the fall/winter 1987 collection, and I think what Ashley
wore, like this dress, is just as good as the original. I think that the mermaid tail, the very dramatic mermaid tale is perfect, the pannier inspired hips, I mean, that was a borrowed detail, but I really like that,
'cause it balanced the sleeves that come out of this sort
of overflowing bodice. I like the incorporation of black velvet with the pink satin. It adds way more dimension than
what the original look had. The original look, once again,
it's a very beautiful dress, but I think this dress
that Harris redesigned is more elevated and perfect
for an event like the Met Gala. Also, Ashley Graham just
looks really good in it. It's obviously custom tailored for her, so you know, no surprise there. Actually, another look
that was reinterpreted that I didn't like, so maybe not all, not #notalldresses, a look I didn't love
was Olivia Wilde's look, and she was wearing a
dress that was designed by Chloe's current
designer, Gabriela Hearst, and it's based on this 1983 design that Lagerfeld made when
he was head of Chloe. So in the original Chloe design, it's a sculptural
cap-sleeved, black silhouette, and Gabriela Hearst
reinterpreted and made it white, and also longer, because the dress was a midi-length dress before, and I think that's good to make it longer, 'cause you wanna make it more formal. I think, I forget that one
girl's name, Margaret something? But she wore a pretty short
dress for the red carpet, or the beige carpet. Oh my god, don't even get me started on the whole carpet scenario. I don't know why all these event people keep picking beige carpets, especially when they should
have had the foresight to know lots of people are
gonna wear black and white, and the reason lots of people
are gonna wear black and white is because Karl famously would always wear like his black and white suits, and his fingerless gloves, or whatever, so I think that's one, very Karl, also Chanel, in general, has a lot of black and white color symbolism, because starting from the very top, Coco Chanel was rebelling
against the very Baroque style that woman were expected to wear when she was first coming up, and she wanted to challenge
that by going more minimal., and she also went more
minimal with jewelry too, so a lot of jewelry that Chanel designed was either like diamond,
pearl, silver, gold tones, there weren't many colorful jewels. She did make some colorful jewelry later, but generally, with neutrals, and so if you know Karl
Lagerfeld's gonna be the theme, and you know that one, he
wears black and white a lot, and two, most people are
probably going to do Chanel, you should have the foresight to know most people are gonna wear
black and white on this carpet, which is not gonna look nice
against a beige backdrop. Also, okay, I'm gonna
take off these glasses, because I feel
(glasses clinking) it's blocking our connection. (chuckling) So I feel like the
choice to wear all white really washed Olivia out, and also, I mean, this
is gonna be a hot take, I didn't really love the original design that Karl did anyway, like it's supposed to be a violin, because the 1983 collection
was the theme of music, but when I was looking at it, I thought it looked like a peanut, because I guess I'm
just not literate enough to know where this dress was coming from? I feel like it was serving Mr. Peanut becomes pope of the Catholic church. Margaret Zhang also controversially wore basically the same dress. She wore a dress that was
inspired by the same dress, so it did have that like peanut at the... The violin on the front,
and that was pretty crazy, because she didn't walk with the rest of the Gabriela Hearst team, so it seems like she just
independently had this idea. Usually, when a couple
people have a similar look, it's because they're going
with the same designer who is designing all these things, and therefore, making
their team look cohesive, and I actually think Margaret
Zhang's look was better, because it was all black. It was also a little bit more dramatic, like it had the cape in the back that went down and had a train, and I also liked the silhouette more of the bottom of the skirt. I think with the violin,
it was very vertical, and Olivia Wilde's look,
it was very column like and vertical compared to Margaret's look, which had the very vertical detail, but then it had this like
sort of outwardly wide, overflowing shape, which gave it more balance. That's just a personal preference. Okay, another dress that
I really, really liked was Michaela Coel's Schiaparelli dress, and it consisted of 130,000 crystals, 26,000 mixed stones,
and 3,800 hours of work. I really loved it, and I
also didn't even notice that the dress was sheer at first, and for me, I have a
bone to pick with sheer, because I think at the moment,
sheer is really trendy, and so a lot of people
have done sheer improperly. Also, one of the pitfalls
with wearing sheer is that it can look very
tacky and very cheap, but obviously, this was studded in stones, and so it looked very chic,
it looked very expensive. Yeah, I was a fan. I kind of like Sydney Sweeney's look, and I think that's because Sydney Sweeney has notoriously gotten the worst styling for so many red carpets. I thought she looked lovely in the dress. It's Miu Miu. I usually don't love a nude dress moment, especially on a beige carpet, because I think on photos, it
doesn't necessarily capture as well as it does in real life. Photos tend to wash people out, and that's what I thought happened with Gwendoline Christie
and Nicole Kidman. So Nicole Kidman was
wearing a Chanel dress that she wore in her
Chanel No. 5 ad campaign that she did in 2004. It was like this fashion film
she made with Karl Lagerfeld. I thought that was a very
beautiful thing to recall back to. I think the photos were
not doing it justice, because this carpet was
not doing it justice, it just kind of melded in with her skin, and it wasn't super
flattering in that sense, but for Sydney Sweeney, I wasn't bothered, because I think the stones
that were glued to the dress gave it more texture, which gave the dress
overall more dimension, so it didn't just blend into her skin. One thing that I didn't love is her hair. I feel like they just didn't
really style her hair, like it was like the last thing
before she ran out the door. Maybe she ran outta time, I don't know. I think it would've been
a really elevated look if they did more 1940s-esque
hairstyle for her, something like maybe like
Veronica Lake or Rita Hayworth, but the way that her hair is, it kind of just looks a little
unbrushed, a little messy. Okay, Gisele, I wasn't a
huge, huge fan of this look, and I know I'm in the minority, because so many people were like, "Oh my god, Gisele, this
is, she looks amazing, "his is her divorce look,
this is her revenge dress," or whatever, I think it looks nice. She's worn this dress before
in a 2007, 2008 editorial. The dress is from a 2007
Chanel Couture collection. When I looked at the photos on the runway, I kind of wish she had put the
hood of the cape on her head, because I think it makes the dress a little bit more interesting. It makes the look a little
bit more interesting. For me, it's just sort of a nice dress. I don't really have any comments. I don't think it
particularly stood out to me. A couple other looks that
I thought needed headwear or could have been styled
differently at the top, Eileen Gu, who was wearing
Robert Wun Couture, she's wearing this wine stain dress, so if you look closely at the details, it looks like wine was like
splattered all over the dress. It's a very fun dress, but the original look came with a hat, which I think would've tied
the look way more together, because from the neck
down, it's super formal, because it's a couture dress, but from the neck up, she's just wearing this more casual ponytail, and one of my friends on
Twitter said it looked like a post workout ponytail, so there was a bit of a discrepancy there. A lot of the times with looks
that come with a matching hat, I can tell there should
have been a hat there. Same thing with Dua Lipa. Her dress is a bridal look, and Karl Lagerfeld was known for making these Chanel bridal looks, and only his muses would wear them, and so it was kind of a big deal, so I do like that she
picked a bridal look, but it was missing the little top hat that Claudia Schiffer wore
originally with it back in 1992, and again, Dua Lipa's hair
kind of just like flat in comparison to the rest of the look. Kristen Stewart also hatless. I actually really loved
Kristen Stewart's look though, because she's been in a Chanel contract for a really long time. I don't know if she's still in it, I think she's still in it, but I feel like they've always dressed her in a way that is not serving her, but this look, I think
really matches her energy. It's a suit from the 2016 collection. I like that she looks a
little off duty with it, like she's wearing minimal makeup, her hair's kind of tousled, but purposely, it doesn't look messy. It looks purposely messy,
which is a different thing, but yeah, I would've
liked it more with a hat. I thought Doja Cat's look was so fire. She is wearing an homage to Choupette, who is Karl Lagerfeld's cat, and Choupette is still alive, Choupette has outlived her dad, and also, Choupette wasn't even Karl's
cat from the beginning. Karl was cat sitting
Choupette for a friend, and then he became so attached to the cat that his friend just ended
up giving him Choupette, which I think is just very strange. As someone who owns a cat, I would never give my cat to
a cat sitter, but I digress. It was only a matter of
time before someone came in a full Choupette get up, and I honestly also had an inkling that it was gonna be Doja Cat, because she's been doing a
lot of very experimental, very avant garde looks on red carpets that I think is very much needed, where it's like I'm gonna do
something that's show-stopping, and that's going to bring attention, and that's gonna start a conversation. I'm never gonna play it safe, and I really love that for her, and I also love that she chose Choupette, because her name is literally Doja Cat, so the actual dress that she's
wearing is Oscar de la Renta, and she's wearing prosthetic,
a prosthetic nose piece, and claws, and she also
meowed at the interview. - [Interviewer] What was
your inspiration for tonight? Be honest with me, and go into detail. (Doja Cat meowing) - Compare this with Jared Leto, who pulled in in like a mascot uniform that was supposed to represent Choupette. I thought that was like really uninspired, and I thought that was kinda stupid. I think for him, it was like a joke. It was like, because he had an outfit, he didn't stay in that
catsuit the whole time, whereas I think with Doja,
she really elevated the idea, and she really made it her own, and she brought fashion to it. Anne Hathaway also had a beautiful look. She, I'm living for the Anne
Hathaway Renaissance, honestly, because Anne Hathaissance, because I feel like in the 2010s, everyone just didn't
like her for no reason, so I really love this come up for her, and I love that she's being
reframed as a fashion icon, because the looks that she's
been turning out lately in the past year have been so good. She's wearing Donatella Versace. According to an interview Donatella did, she said, "For Anne, I
wanted to create a gown "to celebrate a conversation
between Karl and Versace. "I remember listening to
Gianni and Karl talking "and laughing over dinner one evening, "and this dress reminds me of that moment. "Karl celebrated women in craftsmanship. "I learned so much from his work. "The dress is a tribute to
our shared '90s experience, "tweed, pearls, and camellias
mixed with safety pins, "slashes, and a corset." It has a lot of elements that Karl used while working at Chanel, so a lot of these elements
are also just Chanel elements. Tweed, for instance, Coco Chanel combined a lot of men's wear into
her woman's wear designs, because once again, I
said she was rebelling against this Baroque fashion institution, but also, she liked men's wear. She thought it was way more comfortable. Tweed, at the time, was mostly
used for men's clothing, and she brought it to women's wear, because she wore the tweed, she thought it was a very
comfortable, very supple fabric, and then beginning in 1924,
she enlisted a Scottish factory to produce her tweed fabrics
for all of her clothes, and then the pearls, the
pearl-adorned safety pins, pearls are also big motif with Chanel, which I don't think is very surprising, because a lot of people
wore pearls last night. According to the author,
Emma Baxter-Wright, she describes Chanel's feelings
towards pearls like this: "The luminosity of pearls
capture the light she felt "and gave a flattering
glow to the skin and eyes. "Like much that she did
to democratize fashion, "jewelry was not to be saved
for impressive occasions." The bodice of Anne Hathaway's dress, the cups are shaped like camellia flowers, which is the signature flower of Chanel. The story goes that
when Coco was around 13, she saw Sarah Bernhardt's performance in "The Lady Of The Camellias,"
and was deeply moved by it. The first time we find
camellia in Chanel's designs was in 1913, and they've since been
a mainstay of the brand, so I think what Anne Hathaway
is wearing is amazing. It's very on theme, and yeah,
love it, love that for her. Another person who really
leaned on the pearls was Kim Kardashian. She's wearing Schiaparelli. This is a custom dress, it's
made of 50,000 real pearls, and it also bore striking resemblance to her 2007 "Playboy"
shoot where she posed nude, but covered in pearls. There's something that
bothers me about it, and I think it's like
the shapewear corset. It just looks kind of cheap, and I understand maybe it's because Kim has been making a lot of moves with her shapewear basics brand, SKIMS, and maybe she wanted to
like subtly promote that? I don't know, I think if it was like silk, or a velvet, or more luxurious
fabric, it could have worked, but it's just, you know,
it looks like it's Spanx. It's like that kind of material. Cara is wearing something
clearly Karl Lagerfeld related. She's wearing sunglasses, her hair is like this bleached gray tone, but the outfit is very strange, because she's wearing
this white shirt dress that has a floor length
cape, very dramatic, but she's also wearing
patent leather leg warmers and sandals, and I think the thing that bothers me is I don't really like ensembles where you can't tell what weather this person would wear this look in, like it doesn't make
sense for any weather, because I feel like with
leather leg warmers, you associate that with fall, winter, those are very insulating, but then she's wearing
it with open toe sandals. Also, the shirt dress, it
looks like it was probably made of a cotton or something very light. It looked kind of summery, and it also had a mini skirt
and a plunging neckline, but then she was also wearing moto gloves that, you know, you
don't really wear gloves in the spring, summertime. I think my brain was kind of like, I don't compute what this ensemble is. it looks kind of messy for that reason, and I didn't like it. Cardi B, so when she pulls up
in this Miss Sohee pink gown, I was like, "Okay, what's going on?" The thing is like she is
worn something similar. In 2021, she wore a Mugler
dress that was feathered, it was red, and it had
that sculptural backing that when I saw this, I was kind of like, just thinking about that, and I was like, okay, like you know, I've
kind of seen this before. It's not, it's very Cardi, it's not really like that interesting. You know, she had me in the first half, and I should have trusted
her the whole time, because the dress that she pulled up in on the beige carpet was so fun. It was this black and
white Chen Peng dress that had this corset bodice, and the skirt, it was
made of a quilted fabric, which I think is representing
like the quilted Chanel bags, but also, there were these
camellia designs on it, there were pearls on the bodice, the top part of her top, it was like a shirted collar
with a tie, so very Karl. I thought this was a very strong look. Once again, suits are symbolized as being more masculine, right? But the hoop skirt of this
dress is very feminine. I feel like hoop skirts are
very, very feminine coded, and so it was this nice blend between the masculine and the feminine that I think, once again,
is really significant in upholding the legacy of Chanel. You know, I have to say, something that I was surprised with too was there weren't a lot of sexy outfits, and usually, when I think
of a lot of Karl's work, I think it's very sexy. He's designed a lot of ensembles that are just like
catsuits, and underwear, literal underwear briefs over tights, and the only person that I saw really lean into that was Kendall Jenner, but I didn't love Kendall Jenner's outfit, because I feel like it was
kind of giving Party City. I dunno, there was just something about it that looked a little cheap, and that looked a little
bit like a Coachella outfit, and also, everyone was comparing her to that Chris Jenner meme, so that was like another just funny thing that added to the unseriousness
of Kendall's outfit. Florence Pugh wore Valentino. Honestly, the dress is really nice. I really love it. It's this white ball gown
that has a plunging neckline, and there's a little
bow detail at the front, and it has a long train. It's very, very elegant,
and I don't know why, but she was wearing this
feathered headpiece with it that made no sense with
the rest of the outfit. You know how I was complaining
about how some outfits look like they need a hat? This outfit did not look like it needed any kind of headwear. The last look of the
night I wanna talk about was also the last person
who showed up, (chuckling) Rihanna. She was wearing custom Valentino
Haute Couture silk dress featuring a cape that was covered in 30 giant camellia
appliques, and I love it. I think it obviously is an homage to a lot of Karl's bridal looks, and I think what's also fun is
she debuted a pregnancy bump, and so congrats to Rihanna, but also, I just think that it's like
such a cheeky, fun thing to do to wear like a white wedding gown, and then also show that
you're pregnant, (laughing) because you know, like the
whole white bridal look came about because like white
is the color of virgins, and you know, back in the day, it was way more common for you
to get married as a virgin, so I think that's just like
a funny thing that she did, and I love that, you know,
A$AP Rocky, he was dressed up, he was wearing this like kilt, he was very Karl Lagerfeld coded, and also, Karl does like Scottish tartan. He looked fine, but I also liked that he knew Rihanna was a star, and he, you know, made space for her to get photographed by herself, because he knew we were all
waiting for her and not him. You know, that's what you
need in a man, (laughing) someone who knows not to
take up too much space. Overall, I think that the looks were, I wanna say, like a little
boring, a little tepid, and I think that's the problem
with the theme in general. It's too easy to just do Chanel, and that's why a lot of people ended up doing very similar types of outfits, whereas it would've been fun to see like some more Fendi references. It would've been fun to
see more specific looks that were copied, like
what Ashley Graham did, and even what Olivia Wilde was wearing. That's more fun. I also think because the
color palette, you know, most people did black and white, and so it was like a
bit of, a bit of a bore, visually watching it,
especially on this beige carpet. I honestly was losing
steam about two hours in on the livestream. I would've liked a
different theme in general, and I really hope that next
year they do Vivienne Westwood, although a lot of
designers have passed away unfortunately this year, so I don't know who they're gonna choose for next year's theme, or if they're gonna just
make one big memorial theme, or if they're just not
gonna do a designer theme, but I think it'd be really cool to do Vivienne Westwood, personally, so yeah, okay, great. Let me know in the
comments what your favorite Met Gala look was, what your least favorite
Met Gala look was, if I didn't mention something. Yeah, I hope you have a
lovely rest of your day, and I'll see you next
time, bye. (blowing kiss)
