Best-Dressed Celebrities on Met Gala 2023 Red Carpet – Fashion News

As with any given Met Gala, the theme was wide open for interpretation on fashion’s biggest night. This year’s nod to the late designer Karl Lagerfeld with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibition “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” brought plenty of options to the table.

Some went for the pearls, an obvious nod to Chanel. Founder Coco Chanel was often draped in them, and in the traditional jewelry Lagerfeld found endless ways to reinvent the strands. (So, too, did attendees like Kim Kardashian and Lizzo.) Others went for vintage, sourcing archival Fendi or Chloé, houses that the designer also worked for during his long career. And others went straight for Choupette, Lagerfeld’s beloved cat.

But for many of those closest to Karl Lagerfeld, paying sartorial homage meant wearing white. And not just any white, but bridal white.

To Lagerfeld, the bride was a constant source of inspiration and symbolism, and a reliable last look on the Chanel couture runways. From 1984, when the designer put muse Ines de la Fressage in wedding white, to the spring 2019 haute couture show before his death, Lagerfeld used the bride-in-white as his final look for Chanel. In his last decade at the brand, Lagerfeld used his bride to make statements about the world outside of fashion, putting models in white tuxedos or pairing modern bridal gowns with running shoes (who could forget Cara Delevingne’s “Runaway Bride” moment from 2014?) Even a spangly swimsuit and train became a bridal look (in his last collection, no less). It’s a tradition that current creative director Virginie Viard continues to use on the Chanel runways, wrapping its couture shows with the Lagerfeld tradition.

At the Met, long time Lagerfeld friend and muse Penelopé Cruz walked the carpet in a chiffon embellished gown with a veil that read as bridal all the way, reprising her role as the exquisite bride that closed the fall 2019 ready-to-wear runway show during Paris Fashion Week, shortly after the designer’s death that year.

Always one to lean into the evening’s theme, Rihanna appeared on the red carpet in a Valentino ivory gown and matching voluminous shrug, all decked out in Chanel’s iconic camellia flower, which Lagerfeld used again and again in the brand’s design codes. And Dua Lipa showed up in an actual Chanel wedding gown, a fall 1992 finale look that was first worn by Claudia Schiffer, on the arm of Lagerfeld.

Even some of the guys got into the bridal look. Bad Bunny walked the carpet in a white tuxedo by Jacquemus that was accented with a camellia-accented chiffon train.

The bridal homages were plentiful, but the best examples expectedly came from those who knew Lagerfeld best. In a custom look by the still-existing Karl Lagerfeld brand, paired with heels by Stuart Weitzman, noted muse and friend Cara Delevingne seemed to channel the designer in the way he would have wanted: with an unexpected verve — and a pair of fingerless gloves.