FASHION Magazine
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Met Gala 2014: The 54 best dressed on last night’s epic red carpet
Photography by Getty Images See the complete Met Gala 2014 red carpet »
If reports about Anna Wintour wanting this year’s Met Gala to be more exclusive were true, they certainly did not apply to the A-list. Last night’s red carpet was stacked (and we mean stacked) with just about everyone from the recluse to rising star. Surely, it had something to do with the fact that last night was the inaugural Met Gala celebrating the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s renamed Anna Wintour Costume Center. Maybe too, it was just like the rest of us have been trained to understand: The Met Gala is not to be missed.
Honouring oft-forgotten American couturier Charles James, last night’s event was all about 1950s glamour. Its “white tie” guest-list prompted gents like Johnny Depp and Kanye West to wear tails, Zoe Saldana to wear a recreated Michael Kors bustle and both Taylor Swift and Sarah Jessica Parker to take to the stairs with over-the-top Oscar de la Renta trains. Unlike the sometimes cookie cutter Oscars, the Met Gala is a time to break out some real steez and red carpet queen Lupita Nyong’o did just that in a flapper-inspired feathered Prada dress. Perhaps more Poiret than James, the dress made for some serious chatter from both the “for” and “against” camps. Fellow red carpet queen (and queen of life, truly) Rihanna went anti-theme in a sexy stomach-baring Stella McCartney dress which killed, as usual.
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Get to know Charles James: The forgotten genius behind this year’s Met Gala exhibit
Charles James gowns photographed by Cecil Beaton View some of Charles James’s most famous pieces »
Most people know their Chanel from their Givenchy, but bring up Charles James and you’ll likely hear crickets. Lauded as “the world’s best and only dressmaker who has raised haute couture…to a pure art form” by Cristóbal Balenciaga, he might just be the greatest couturier you never knew existed.
Born in 1906 to a British military officer and an American socialite, James got his start as a milliner in Chicago before finding his calling in couture. After moving to New York in 1939, he became the most exclusive dressmaker for America’s high-society swans, including Austine Hearst, Millicent Rogers and Babe Paley—a clientele he personally vetted, even giving them direction on how to move, sit and dance in his designs.
And with creations as sensational as his, James could afford to be choosy. His sweeping gowns and signature silhouette—strapless bodice, tiny waist, voluminous skirt—conveyed a sense of grandeur and majesty that ensured the wearer would be the star of any room. Even Christian Dior attributed the inspiration for his career-defining New Look to a James idea.
Photography by Cecil Beaton/Condé Nast archive
