When “Gilded Glamour,” the dress code of the 2022 Met Gala, was announced, it seemed to be either a recipe for extravagant disaster or irony. After all, the current era has often been compared to the late 19th-century Gilded Age, that period between 1870 and 1900 when extreme wealth was concentrated in the hands of the very few, the robber barons came to the fore, and income inequality grew ever greater just beneath the gold veneer on the glittering surface.
That first gilded age came to a symbolic end with a famously ostentatious party, the Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897, in which many of the attendees, the good and great and greedy of New York society, dressed in full swag as Marie Antoinette. Also, Queen Louise of Prussia.
Was this really what the organizers were going for?
Or could it be, went one interpretation, that by evoking just such a moment, the orchestrators of the current famously ostentatious Met Gala were suggesting that guests dial it back, rewrite history, exercise some restraint. Stop dressing as if for a costume ball in which the goal is to out-Instagram one another.
That idea was blown off the table as soon as Blake Lively, a co-host, appeared in a gleaming copper Versace column festooned in swathes of bustled silk that later unfurled into a verdigris-toned train embroidered with the constellations of Grand Central Terminal. It was a medley of skyscraper dreams rolled into one magic morphing dress. Along with the gown she wore matching opera gloves and a tiara like the Statue of Liberty. Next to her, her husband (and co-host), Ryan Reynolds, in classic white tie, faded into oblivion.
It set the tone for the night.
Those who played it understated simply got lost in the excess. Even Elon Musk, richest man in the world, harbinger of the current gilded age, Twitter disrupter, doing his best to suggest a responsible steward of a public utility in his white tie and tails, barely made a ripple. There was just so much to see.
There was gold — gilt apparently without the guilt. (Of course; no one said interpretations of the theme had to be subtle.) So there was Cardi B, draped in more than a kilometer of body-conscious Versace chains and jewelry, and here was Megan Thee Stallion in gleaming feathers and brocade, like a 24-karat Moschino Valkyrie. There was Carey Mulligan, whose Schiaparelli bustier and train were embroidered with 79,000 gold sequins; and here was Chloe Bailey, whose metallic, strapless Area column recreated the exaggerated curves and hips of a corset and pannier without resorting to those body-shaping devices.
Though lots of others did.
Corsets were the accessory of the evening, along with capes, opera gloves (best on Kodi Smit-McPhee, who paired his red Bottega Veneta pair with a white tuxedo shirt and “jeans” made of leather), tiaras (Hamish Bowles wore a Verdura crown last seen in 1957 at Buckingham Palace) and trains.