Photos document Met Gala red carpet moments over time
You probably picture a few dramatic ensembles when you think of the Met Gala red carpet.
Maybe it’s Beyoncé’s gem-studded Givenchy “naked” dress from 2015 or Rihanna’s eye-catching yellow Guo Pei couture cape gown from the same year. It might be the moment Kim Kardashian appeared in 2021 dressed as a Balenciaga shadow, or the time Law Roach instantly transformed Zendaya’s magical Tommy Hilfiger Cinderella ball gown in 2019. (Another example is her contentious Marilyn Monroe tribute from the previous year.)
However, the standard for best-dressed hasn’t always been this high at the Costume Institute soirée, which starts on the famous steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art each May.
Since the gala’s founding in 1948, the fashion world’s elite have consistently attended, including Cher, Princess Diana, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Diana Ross, and Bianca Jagger over the years. Contrary to some of the cumbersome, constrictive, and occasionally impractical costumes of recent years (hi, Katy Perry as a chandelier), vintage photographs depict a far more conventionally elegant dress code.
Although some recurring themes would have been appropriate decades ago—Cher performed the naked dress at the Met Gala in 1974 before, well, any number of others at the event—the red carpet has more recently evolved into a spectacle, with live streams and social media sharing giving the world a front row seat and encouraging ostentatious viral moments.
