Every year, fashion’s finest and fiercest gather at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual exhibition. Designer and muse hand in hand, the event is as much a display of allegiances as of the actual exhibits on whom the attention shifts a little later — when the red carpet’s rolled up. With “Punk: Chaos to Couture” the theme for this year’s exhibition, we knew there’d be the studs and spikes, pins and tartan, mesh and Mohawks. And that there’d be the pretty silk dresses whose very prettiness is rude and non-sportive. (Aren’t there, after all, enough occasions for the latter?)
Many made a good effort. Anne Hathaway, Madonna and Nicole Ritchie even dyed their mops for the event (though M’s no-pants, tartan-blazer-and-ripped-fishnet look didn’t gather many fans.) Coco Rocha and Jennifer Lopez turned to animal print, while models Gisele Bundchen and Anja Rubik opted for chainmail creations from Anthony Vaccarello. Mesh was in too — a spiky Miley Cyrus in Marc Jacobs, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in Gucci Autumn/ Winter 2013-14. Givenchy remained a popular choice for the evening — Rooney Mara, Kim Kardashian, Carine Roitfeld, Madonna, Florence Welch all opting for the label. Also, in an unusual turn of events, drawing flak. Tartan came best on Sarah Jessica Parker’s feet — in the form of over-the-knee boots that walked under the Giles Deacon gown. Other tartan fans came in the form of Tommy and Dee Hilfiger, Madonna (Givenchy Haute Couture), and Christina Ricci in Vivienne Westwood. (At last year’s event, Christina’s was that head-turning giant bow Thakoon dress.) The little safety pin wasn’t forgotten, coming on Hailee Steinfeld (a safety pin-embellished Donna Karan Atelier gown) and The Great Gatsby ’s Carey Mulligan (Balenciaga). More power to punk.