Zendaya arrived a little later to the Met Gala in an elaborate Tommy Hilfiger gown with lit up blue lines, a giant bustle skirt and puff sleeves. She was styled to look like Cinderella, she carried a little carriage purse which I’m assuming is Judith Leiber, and she even deliberately lost her slipper on the stairs! That was a nice touch. Is Cinderella camp when it’s interpreted like this? This dress reminds me of the light up Zac Posen gown which Claire Danes wore to the 2016 Met Gala, the one with the Manus x Machina theme. There are definite style differences, like the bodice and more graphic lighting. Claire’s dress was compared to Cinderella too, only Zendaya did the whole look.
Speaking of Zac Posen, here’s Katie Holmes in an amazing purple gathered gown with branch-like shoulders. This is a great gown, look at the elaborate bodice and the tulle fishtail, but I don’t think it’s camp at all.
Also in Zac Posen was Nina Dobrev, looking like a cute ice skater with plastic structured wings and a plastic overlay. Fabulous dress, incredible use of fabric and detailing, but not camp.
Julia Garner also wore Posen and this fits the theme with the multiple levels of side draping. She looks like an art deco goddess. This was my favorite Posen.
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Look at the back!
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Zendaya and Julia both had the most camp look out of all these ladies. But I just feel like none of them really pushed it further to fully embrace the campy goodness. The styling/makeup can really MAKE the camp look.
Julia had the best camp face. Droll.
Maybe it’s early in the AM, but the Camp theme is lost on me. Katie looked fierce, love her look. I would just bring the top up a slight bit. It looks like her boobs are being dragged down. But she looked great.
And I actually like the modern Cinderella dress with the cute purse. One can only pull that off at the Met Gala.
Think Drag Queens; Elton John; Cher; Liberace; Bette Midler; aristocrats from the 1700s with powdered faces, beauty marks, giant hair and elaborate outfits prancing about in heels (men too); think pantomime and cabaret, think Flaming Creatures from Jack Smith and anything from John Waters: Hairspray, Pink Flamingos and Polyester, think But I’m a Cheerleader.
It takes things that are regarded as being in bad taste and turns them into something fabulous by making it ironic and performative, by putting it in quotation marks. It has to be tongue in cheek and joyful or it doesn’t work. It is most definitely exaggerated. It is often confused with tacky or kitsch and is related to both; but it neither – it is more deliberate and thought-provoking and humourous.
Sontag’s essay emphasised key elements as being: artifice, frivolity, naive middle-class pretentiousness, and ‘shocking’ excess. It can be a style or performance identity and people can ‘practice campness’ for sure – many do. This style is lively, dynamic, subversive and audacious and as Sontag observed: is a way of consuming or performing culture “in quotation marks.”
PS: Katie wasn’t camp at all. She could have been with better styling but she missed the mark. You need to be brave with hair and makeup to pull off camp, and you need major attitude. There is no joy and fun in her look so, even though it is a beautiful dress, it is a fail as far as meeting the theme.
Zendaya was definitely camp – and I believe this was also a play on her leaving her Disney girl image behind as her new HBO show is about to be released and it is very far from her good girl Disney image. So spot on in terms of the theme.
Julia was on theme beautifully.
I think Nina’s dress was great but again, the styling failed her. If she had leaned into the ice-skater look more and made it fabulous, she would have nailed the theme.
I loved Cinderella as a kid, so Zendaya’s look is fun to me.
Katie’s is incredible. I don’t get any theme from it, but it’s just so striking.
Posen is a fit genius, and he either has a custom dress form of Katie, or else does multiple fittings. Probably both. If you look at Katie’s typical style, this is pretty over the top for her. I think she looks amazing and the dress is gorgeous.
The fairy dress and the deco goddess dress (so Erte’!) are both awesome as well. Love how different all three are.
I think that, sort of like attorneys, the designers pitch and advise but they kinda have to do what the client wants. And most of them want to be pretty. These are all very lively, fun, and OTT looks, IMHO. And pretty!
Totally forgot to comment on Zendaya, haha!
She is one of those people who can wear almost anything and look fantastic. She makes a perfect Cinderella, and it works with her youthfulness. I thought it was adorable.
The stylist’s costume, the magic wand, the tiny pumpkin coach, losing the slipper… all perfect! Loved the theatricality and joyfulness of it all!
TBH I’m surprised we haven’t seen more light up garments at the Gala. They’ve been doing it at Burning Man and other festivals for years and years. Only three so far here?
I loved the entrance, the transition. Even the glass slipper. Fairy princess Cinderella.
But i can’t get Claire Danes out of my head because she did this look at this event what 2 years ago?
Pssss just saw a pic of Katie with Jamie at the met gala. 🙂🤗
Loved Zendaya’s whole look.
According to this definition of camp:
‘Something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate, or out-of-date as to be considered amusing; a style or mode of personal or creative expression that is absurdly exaggerated and often fuses elements of high and popular culture.’
Nina Dobrev’s dress was 3D printed and took 200 hours to complete. How does that not fit the definition of camp?
the dress fits camp to a tee, but it was the shoes – she should’ve taken it up a few notches from her safe pumps.
Nina’s dress taking a lot of mechanical effort to create fits the Machina theme from a few years ago better. There is no expression of bad taste, exaggerated taste, or high-low culture in it. It’s just a 3D printed dress.
Zendaya, however, married Disney to couture, and the performative touch with her stylist acting as her fairy godfather was great. Camp all the way.
By that definition I agree! It’s way too short to be “appropriate” it’s outrageously artificial and I think the wings and ice skater look is amusing. I think it was great! Also love Zendaya’s look but I knew I would!
Nina’s dress fits the theme in taking something bad taste and making it fabulous; but the styling is awful and drags the fab dress down. Better shoes, hair, make-up and overall styling and attitude would have made this camp AF. Imagine lace-up white booties as a take on ice-skating boots, for example?
Julie…amazing. The plastic overlay on Nina’s tiny dress saves the look somewhat, but it really would’ve wow’d had there been more dress and more overlay.
Unpopular opinion: I thought Zendaya was the biggest miss of the night, mainly because she’s one of the people who typically nails it. I get the camp, but it’s lacking the counter culture undertone of LGBT+ camp. There’s no rebellion in her look to me. It’s over the top, but winds up falling too much into costume to feel genuine.
Well, that, and the Zac Posen version from a few years back was prettier, IMO. The biggest thing that stood out here was Law Roach acting as the fairy godmother.
Her openly gay male stylist law roach dressed up as the fairy god mother and literally transforming her with a wand was supercampy to me- he even had the purple pussy bow down!
I liked the look, but it lost it’s wow factor because of the Claire Danes version being so recent!
Cool concept & execution though 🙂
I don’t get the Claire Danes comparison really other than they both light up- Katy Kerry did that before Claire Danes too. The dress lit up but it also had hydraulics in it that cause the sleeves to lift up and the skirt to become fuller.
I disagree. I get this look totally because she is also about to leave her Disney good girl image behind – her new show looks pretty gritty! So it ties in perfectly. She has her gay stylist camping it up as her fairy godmother and date and she is having a fab time! Totally camp!
Katie Holmes’ dress is my favorite non-theme look of the night. At any other Met Gala that would be a stand out.
Zendaya is wearing a hoop skirt (or ball gown) with a peplum, not a bustle.
Holmes gown would have been better served on a black drag queen looking va va voom.