If you didn’t wake up early to catch the streaming of the annual Met Gala yesterday, not to worry. Here are some of the highlights that made us look in wonder, confusion or pure judgement.

The Met Gala is an annual charity event by the Metropolitan Museum of Arts’ Costume Institute. Often deemed ‘fashion’s night out’, the Met Gala is a chance for designers to go all out and showcase their most fantastical creations. It is also an extremely exclusive event, reserved only for the most rich, famous and important people in Hollywood.

The museum exhibition theme this year was ‘Sleeping Beauty: Reawakening Fashion’, which explored how garments can be revived and reworn with technology.

The charity event dress code was ‘The Garden of Time’, a reference to a dystopian timewarp short story by JG Ballard, with many fashion outlets and influencers predicting archived pieces to show up on the carpet.

Florals? in spring? groundbreaking

Long trains and chiffon were all over the grand staircase last night. One of the fashion highlights was British actress Alia Bhatt’s saree that took 163 craftsmen 1965 hours to make. While rap queen Nicki Minaj showed up in a Francesco Risso design of hand-painted, recycled aluminium flowers.

Many showed up with some variant of a floral motif to fill the brief. But other outfits sparked conversation, either with their creativity or shock value.

Zendaya

Zendaya’s looks are always highly anticipated and she certainly brought the theatrics. The actress dressed in two outfits, both by John Galliano. The first a totally unexpected outfit amongst the pastels. Her makeup done like a 1920’s, gothic flapper girl.

The second a black dress with a reconstructed silhouette and a bouquet headpiece. 

Time stands still

It was especially interesting to see how the concept of time was interpreted this year.

South African singer Tyla wore a dress resembling sand and carried an hourglass clutch. It was a wonderful way to express the passing of time through fashion, except for the fact that she couldn’t move.

Quite hilariously, she needed her bodyguard to pick her up like a Barbie doll to transport her up the Met Gala stairs.           

Wake-up call

Rapper Doja Cat showed up looking like she just got out of the shower and had no time to get ready. Her makeup running down her face and a towel turban on her head.

Then once she got inside, she changed into this wet t-shirt dress. 

Probably a good idea to set the alarm next time.

 AI strikes again

Katy Perry’s two dresses were unreal…

…literally. Because Perry didn’t even attend the Met, and the photos were AI generated. 

The photos circled around on the internet before Perry’s mother forwarded her one of the photos, having fallen for it herself.

Perry then took to Instagram, clarifying in her caption that she ‘couldn’t make it to the MET, had to work’.

While some stars bloomed and others wilted under the scrutiny of the online universe, the Met Gala definitely lived up to its billing as one of the marquee events in the year’s fashion calendar.

Main image of Katy Perry AI photo release.