Best & Worst Of The Met Ball!

There’s some intelligence here but mostly celebrity fun. Special thanks to Alex Brannian for her amazing photo research and fennel and leek soup which I ate while watching the arrivals. Ohhh the glamor. This edition is free for all subscribers but please consider subscribing for future.

Ten years is a long time in the celebrity power calculus. Coming back as a co-chair rather than just a guest is a very deliberate power move. Beyoncé used her absence to make an impact. She didn't return to the party. She took over the party in a dazzling skeleton-inspired Olivier Rousteing gown with a massive feathered train and intricate crystal headpiece, ten years in the making and worth every minute of the wait.

Beyoncé brought Blue Ivy and co-host Nicole Kidman brought daughter Sunday Rose and joked "she has to be at school tomorrow at 8am."

Love the real ones but the sculptures weren't doing it for me.

Jeff Bezos decided not to walk the red carpet and it was a wise move. For the first time in its history, the gala's lead sponsorship comes from private individuals rather than a corporation. Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez were the headline sponsors, having reportedly contributed $10 million to the event and causing an uproar of protests. For the three decades before this, the Met Gala's most powerful magic trick was the illusion that money couldn't buy you a seat at the table. Anna Wintour built her entire empire on the premise that taste was the ultimate velvet rope. You could be richer than God and still find yourself on the wrong side of it. That was always Anna's philosophy. Lauren Sánchez co-chairing this year's Met Gala has changed everything.

She wore a custom Dior gown constructed entirely from film strips, telling Vogue it was inspired by the Audrey Hepburn classic Sabrina, one of her favourite films of all time. Intellectual, personal, and ravishing. The assignment fully read, fully executed.

The pop legend arrived with seven women carrying her train up the famous Met stairs. I didn't love her Saint Laurent ensemble which was a direct interpretation of the 1945 painting "The Temptation of St. Anthony, Fragment II" by surrealist artist Leonora Carrington but nobody else even came close with her arrival with her covern of seven ladies in waiting.

Venus Williams and Lena Dunham. Venus wore a Swarovski crystal mesh gown inspired by Robert Pruitt's portrait of herself commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery. Lena's dress was inspired by the blood spatter on the neck of Holofernes from the 17th-century Baroque painting Judith Slaying Holofernes by Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi.

Doechii arrived barefoot, telling Vogue "the Met is very clean. Not the streets of New York City, but the Met is very clean. And I'm here. I'm committed." Statement of the night.

Blake Lively arrived solo in archival Versace just hours after it was announced she and Justin Baldoni had settled their nearly two-year legal battle. The timing was either impeccably planned or the universe has a very good publicist.

"He went down on one knee, I went down on two." Law Roach joking about how he got his huge engagement-style ring.

Amid Harry Styles engagement rumors, cool girl Zoe kept her ring finger tucked firmly in her pocket on the carpet, though photos taken later showed her hand to be free of a ring. The world still waits for a concrete confirmation.

Who knew? She is everyone's best friend. While interviewing stars for the red carpet Vogue show she kept dropping that she was the interviewee's friend and would text them later.

Bad Bunny showed up as a septuagenarian version of himself, complete with hyper-realistic prosthetics, a grey wig, grey facial hair and a cane, physically inhabiting the exhibition's section on the aging body rather than simply wearing a designer outfit to it. I have never seen a man turn up to fashion's biggest night looking 40 years older than he is and make it the most intellectually rigorous look on the carpet. Mmmm Daddy. 

Janelle Monáe arrived in a custom Christian Siriano dress featuring electrical wires, animatronic butterflies and live moss. It should not work. It absolutely works.

Katy Perry hid her entire face behind a chrome mask designed by Stella McCartney. The theme is "Fashion Is Art," not "Fashion Is a Helmet."

The Wisteria Walls. Gorgeous.

The Wizard of Oz Floors. 

So few big ones. The story of the 2026 Met Gala was written as much by absence as attendance, and these names haunted every wide shot of the evening.

Meryl Streep declined a co-chair invitation, reported by the Daily Mail to be a direct response to the Bezoses' involvement, just days after opening a film in which she plays a fictionalised Anna Wintour, in what may be the most elegant act of political theatre this city has seen in years. 

Taylor Swift hasn't been back since co-chairing in 2016, and with a July wedding to Travis Kelce in active planning, Marie Claire noted she appears to be sitting out the spotlight entirely this summer. 

Harry Styles, whose fiancée Zoë Kravitz was co-chairing the host committee, skipped fashion's biggest night for a rehearsal room in Amsterdam, where his Together, Together tour opens on May 16.

Bella Hadid delivered her entire boycott statement via a single liked Instagram post criticising the event's ties to Jeff Bezos, no press release, no interview, no explanation required. 

Ariana Grande, who turned last year's carpet into a full fashion moment alongside her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo, is sitting 2026 out due to work commitments.

I hope you enjoyed this special edition please forward this to someone who'd appreciate it. Have a great week!