Cockroaches, cat costumes and a tribute to a controversial creator – it’s time to put an end to the Met Gala

Tributes to Karl Lagerfeld made an uninspired event feel borderline insidious

If yesterday’s Met Gala had a theme tune, it would have been Sarah Brightman crooning “Time To Say Goodbye” while Anna Wintour’s handpicked army of celebs walked the red carpet, attempting to outdo each other for headlines.

I’ve always followed the Met Gala. I mean, sure, it’s distasteful. Legendary fashion editor Anna Wintour’s exclusive annual event can be more Mean Girls than charity spectacular, as the Vogue icon decides who’s in and who’s out that year. And the level of ostentatious wealth can be nauseating.

But usually, the gala is a pop cultural moment. Think Cher starting the “naked dress” trend way back in 1974, or last year’s controversy over Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress. Responses to the Met are often a barometer of broader social attitudes, like the telling ageism in the reactions to photos of Sarah Jessica Parker in 2018.

This year, though, the Met Gala fell flat on its perfectly made-up face.

The monochrome theme was both bland and boring – not even Kim Kardashian, usually the Gala’s most reliable headline grabber, could save this drab squib from failure (the fact that a cockroach became the temporary star of the show tells us all we need to know). Oh, hang on: Jared Leto did dress up as a cat.

But tedium was the least of the Gala’s problems.

The main issue lay in the choice of theme for the event: Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, which honoured the “full work and life” of Lagerfeld. Attendees were invited to dress “in honour of Karl”.

Despite reassurances that the event would focus on Lagerfeld’s “works rather than words” , the Gala wasn’t so much paying homage to Lagerfeld’s creations as honouring the designer himself – confirmed by attendees from Dua Lipa to Nicole Kidman gushing over Lagerfeld while on the red carpet.

I’m not sure what Wintour was thinking when she decided on this year’s theme but her choice – of all possible themes – to honour such a controversial figure speaks volumes about fashion and Hollywood’s continuing problem with women. Not to mention its uncritical acceptance by those with power and influence in the industry.

Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, was a fashion giant. During his illustrious career, he had his own namesake brand and worked for fashion heavyweights Balmain, Fendi and, perhaps most famously, Chanel. He was also notoriously frank about his opinions, so much so that Meryl Streep, who famously played the formidable fashion editor Miranda Priestly (rumoured to be inspired by Anna Wintour) in The Devil Wears Prada, sued Lagerfeld for slander when they fell out over a Chanel dress in 2017.

But he didn’t stop at publicly deriding those who crossed him. He was also outspoken in his criticisms of the #MeToo movement, as well as same-sex marriage and gay men adopting children.

Given the fashion world’s appalling record of sexual assault and harassment, it probably wasn’t prudent to so visibly honour a man who dismissed models who alleged sexual violence as “stupid”, “toxic”, “sordid creatures”.

Lagerfeld seemed to be of the opinion that “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”, suggesting in a 2018 interview with Numero that “if you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent”.

Lagerfeld also shared that he was “fed up” of hearing about models and actors recounting their experiences of sexual assault and harassment: “what shocks me most in all of this are the starlets who have taken 20 years to remember what happened … not to mention the fact that there are no prosecution witnesses”.

In the same interview, he goes on to rehearse an old poisonous trope that sexual assault and harassment are about the attractiveness of the victim rather than the power of the perpetrator. Some models, he claimed, are “skinny things with wonky teeth… they certainly don’t run the risk of getting harassed”.

What a guy! He might have been a fashion genius, but there’s no sanitising his toxic views – is there really a reason to celebrate him at such a prestigious, culturally influential event? Except, perhaps, to lend credibility to his outrageous opinions?

The event didn’t go without protest, however; although it wasn’t acknowledged during the red carpet. Founder of Model Alliance, which advocates for models’ rights and safety, Sara Ziff, said “The choice to honour Lagerfeld embodies the dissonance of an industry that claims to be progressive, that celebrates body positivity and survivors on the one hand, and then reveres figures like Lagerfeld without even acknowledging their regressive views”.

Quite.

Because that’s the other thing: Lagerfeld was notoriously and outspokenly fat phobic. The one potentially pleasing moment was seeing pop culture heroes like Ashley Graham and Lizzo metaphorically sticking their middle-finger up to the industry’s fat phobia by wearing clothes inspired by the designer… but on their “plus-sized” bodies.

If Wintour wants to maintain the Met Gala’s cultural clout, and retain its public relevance and interest, then she’ll have to pull her designer socks up for next year.