Short formals, the colors black and gold, big estate earrings, and goth makeup were the top trends for Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s couture de force gala for the annual NY Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
This year’s exhibit showcasing the creations of Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, called “Impossible Conversations,” made it possible for the best and the brightest stars of fashion, Hollywood, music, big business and high society to collide and party. From Martha Stewart to Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood to Beyonce, it was the big bad shebang of the year.
Some 800 dressed-to-kill celebrities caused style gridlock on the stairs of the Met, which was covered in a shocking pink carpet, the signature color of Schiaparelli, Italian couturier in Paris from the ’30s to the ’50s, who died in 1973.
Schiap, as she was called, was the close rival of Coco Chanel. She championed the Surrealist style in working with the art titans of the day, Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau and Man Ray.
Miuccia Prada, who has rocked the fashion landscape since 1990 with her rebellious chic, arrived in a gold brocade pantsuit. She almost didn’t make it, as she tripped in her Prada shoes in her Carlyle suite a day earlier.
But the show must go on, as Prada did many of of the A-List celebrities that night in short formals. Short instantly looked pretty comfortable and rightfully modern. Feet shod mostly in black shoes, another trend seemed youthful and bouncy. Short seems so intelligent, assuring an evening of fun dancing and no wardrobe malfunctions.
Passé ball gowns
Suddenly, the celebs who were garbed in difficult tulle ball gowns or velvet mermaid dresses look so passé, and groaned under the weight of lengthy trains and feathered tails. Alber Elbaz and Sharon Stone were an example of the new power couple, the designer and model or movie star muse, along with Tom Ford with Chanel Iman, Ricardo Tisci of Givenchy with Rooney Mara. There was Marc Jacobs in a see-through lace dress with white boxers by Comme de Garçons with his porno star boyfriend.
Conspicuously absent was Karl Lagerfeld, Andre Leon Talley and Schiaparelli’s iconic granddaughter Marissa Berenson. But for the lavish festivities that cost $20,000 a seat, the night was rock-and-rolled by Fil-American music great Bruno Mars.
In the Temple of Dendur, Coco Rocha, in a very vintage bright yellow Givenchy pantsuit once owned by Elizabeth Taylor got down on the dance floor, while newly engaged couple Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel in Prada looked on.
Take a look at the short stories as the new empowered and aspirational look for a big gala event, and see why it works wonderfully.
