In case you haven’t noticed all the articles about the most iconic Met Gala looks, the biggest night in fashion is tonight. For those of us who are outside the elite fashion world, we mostly think of the Met Gala as that one weekend in spring where celebrities play rich person Halloween. Year after year, we’re all forced to sadly scroll through our Insta feeds and silently judge A-Listers in outfits that look straight out of The Hunger Games, but like, what if you wanted to go? As you can probably guess, getting a ticket to the Met Gala is about as easy as understanding a Kanye West speech—impossible unless you’re Kim Kardashian. But for those of us determined (read: desperate) enough to try and get an invite, here are some tactics you can use to become one of the privileged few who gets to show up the museum dressed as a big meatball and have everyone call you high fashion.
1. Kill Somebody For Anna Wintour
It goes without saying that in order to get into the Met Gala, you have to first get in with Anna Wintour. According to an anonymous socialite who has been “attending the event for years” (10 bucks says it’s Kris Jenner), “Anna is extremely restrictive on who can buy a ticket.” So restrictive, in fact, that even the 100 member Friends Of The Costume Institute (aka people who give Anna Wintour a shitload of money) often can’t get tickets because “Anna decides they can’t go. Period.” So if you thought maybe you could just wait for that direct deposit to hit and slide Anna a $20, you’re sorely mistaken. No, if you want to get into the Met Gala you’re going to have to do something big to prove to Anna that you are here for the right reasons. Might I suggest figuring out who Anna’s greatest enemy is and taking them out in a late night sting operation? Once you present Anna with the head of the girl who stole her boyfriend in 8th grade (we all have one), Anna will see that you are loyal and overlook your non-celeb status. Maybe she’ll even give you an important job like holding Rihanna’s flask or making sure Kendall Jenner doesn’t go rogue and start offering Pepsi to the security guards. Just don’t expect her to acknowledge you publicly or anything because that shit is not happening.
2. Become A Muse
Are you approximately 10 feet tall and weigh anywhere from 0-15 pounds? Then congratulations! You qualify to be the muse of a famous fashion house, which is one of the most legit ways to get into the Met Gala. Going as the invited guest of one of the major fashion houses comes with some major perks (aka you don’t have to pay for a ticket), but there’s also one major downside: you have to wear what they tell you. This means you could either show up slaying like Zendaya, or show up looking like Katy Perry, who has apparently been cast in The Handmaid’s Tale. Either way, there will be pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.
3. Own A Multimillion-Dollar Company
If all else fails, you could always pull a Corinne and own your own multi-million dollar company. Just make sure it’s profitable enough to shell out $500,000 per table, plus whatever it costs to sponsor the event. These coveted tickets usually go to companies like Apple, Warner Bros, and Yahoo, so you’d better put on your black turtleneck and start ignoring your biological child ASAP because you basically have to be Steve Jobs to get one of these seats. So yeah, your idea for an app that texts you whenever you’re near a good happy hour special probably won’t be good enough. You’ll have to think bigger. Once you do invent the New Internet or whatever, you’ll be allowed to select who sits at your table, just so long as they meet Anna Wintour’s approval. In the Met Gala documentary The First Monday In May (streaming on Netflix if you want to watch models for 90 minutes and feel really bad about yourself), you actually see a Vogue staffer rejecting Calvin Klein’s request to have Josh Hartnett at their table by saying “What has he done lately? Nothing.”
I mean, they ain’t wrong.
4. Be Rich And Desperate
Those who are wealthy enough to afford a ticket but not famous enough to merit an invite can still potentially get in by taking an A-Lister’s hand-me-downs. For example, Beyoncé didn’t go to the Met Gala this year because she’s pregnant with the twin messiahs, so her ticket was up for grabs. According to Cameron Silver, the Fashion Director of H by Halston, “I’ve known of society names who couldn’t get a ticket and are prepped to go if there’s a last-minute seat that becomes available. They have their look ready even if they aren’t certain whether or not they will actually have a seat days before the event.” And if you’re thinking it would require a Bachelor-contestant level of shamelessness to actually pull this off, you’re not wrong. After getting over the fact that you’re basically attending the social event of the season on a tourist visa, your shamelessness will be put to the test once again when you are forced to walk the red carpet despite the fact that nobody knows who tf you are. “Everyone walks the red carpet,” Silver told Page Six, “but less well known guests hear crickets because no one is paying attention. It is one of the most demeaning things to walk those stairs as a non-celebrity.” Honestly, that entire situation sounds like a Hot Cheeto-induced stress dream. I think I’d rather just stay home and judge famous people from the safety of my own couch than show up as a secondhand guest to an A-list event and walk a silent red carpet just so that I can eat the same hors d’oeuvres as Jaden Smith. But yeah, if you’re rich AF and have no problem spending thousands of dollars preparing for an event that you were not invited to, then you can totally spend the first Monday in May sitting by the phone hoping Anna Wintour will call and tell you Kerry Washington got a rash.
5. But Seriously Don’t Fuck With Anna Wintour
One of the most surefire ways to not get into the Met Gala (apart from being just like, a regular person) is to get on Anna Wintour’s bad side. Celebs who have been banned from the event include supermodel Coco Rocha (probably for accusing gala co-chair Katy Perry of stealing Rocha’s 2016 Met Gala look for the VMAs), Tim Gunn (for talking shit about Anna being carried down the stairs at a fashion show in 2006), and Rachel Zoe who made the huge mistake of saying she was “more influential than Wintour” in an interview. Bad move, Rachel. No amount of Bravo TV stardom will save you from the fact that Anna Wintour is petty AF and has a loooooong memory. I mean, the woman’s been editor of Vogue for what, 200 years? 300? Honestly, I heard a rumor she once banned Marie Antoinette from the Marc Jacobs after party because she was overheard shit talking the cake.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit, aka that #MetGala thing all the celebrities you follow on Instagram kept posting about last night, is basically the biggest fashion party of the year. It’s an event to fund the fashion department at that museum where Blair Waldorf ate lunch everyday. Every single relevant celebrity (and some non-relevant ones) shows up in a dress that takes up at least eight square feet of red carpet space and somehow has space to take a bunch of bomb solo pics. If you’ve ever tried to take an outfit Insta in Manhattan, you know how impossible it is to get a shot without an angry New Yorker in the background. IDK, I’m not like a scientist or a geographer or anything but to me that sounds like this event is pretty massive. Anyway, let’s talk about the fashion.
Just like all of the Greek life mixers you attended, the Met Gala has a theme every year. It’s pretty similar to college parties in the sense that it doesn’t really matter if your outfit isn’t totally in keeping with the theme as long as you look hot and/or get a great Instagram. Really, the only difference is that in college, you didn’t care about the theme because you were drunk, but for the Met Gala, you don’t care about the theme because it’s some avant-garde shit you probably can’t spell or pronounce. This year’s gala was in honor of Rei Kawakubo, the creator of the Japanese fashion label Comme Des Garçons. See? I told you.
Rumor has it Kylie Jenner’s Versace gown is made out of the exact beaded curtain Britney Spears is seductively hiding behind on the Oops… I Did It Again album cover. I know that this is just a rumor because I just made it up right now, but it’s the least damaging rumor I’ve ever started so I think that it’s probably okay to tell your friends about it.
Gisele’s dress was obviously fabulous because we, like everyone else on Earth, have been brainwashed into thinking everything Gisele does is nothing short of dazzling—but her dress definitely wasn’t outrageous or confusing, which seemed like a missed opportunity. Like, Met Gala is the one chance you get to literally glue random shit to your head yet Gisele took her wardrobe cues from the Super Bowl trophy her husband almost didn’t win this year.
Speaking of gluing random shit to your head and calling it a night, that’s exactly what Katy Perry did. I can’t really tell if this is like super high fashion or the unofficial release of a new pair of Snapchat Spectacles, but either way, somebody better check on Katy to make sure she’s not on the verge of a Britney 2007-esque breakdown. This whole thing looks like if my latest Pinterest fail came to life and started singing about the 2016 election. Like, what is that eyeball? And can’t she get a handler to make sure her veil is on straight? Also, is she wearing socks with sandals here? Her feet look like two enormous camel toes. Every inch of this ensemble is just too much, and, to make matters worse, it’s not even original. I’m fairly certain I saw this exact look on Winona Ryder at the end of Beetlejuice.
Everyone’s freaking out over the fact that Blake Lively looked exactly like Serena Van Der Woodsen returning to the Met steps last night. To those people, I would like to point out the little known fact that Blake Lively actually did play Serena Van Der Woodsen in the hit series Gossip Girl, so like, yeah there’s a pretty solid chance she’s going to look like her. Anyway, the way the seaming on that dress perfectly accentuates Blake’s curves is definitely going to inspire my next going out outfit/crash diet. I don’t even hate the large bird trapped in the bottom of her skirt. Ugh, is Blake lively perfect because I hate her, or do I hate her because she’s perfect?
In an effort to convince us she’s given up the thirst trap life, Kim Kardashian wore the most understated dress possible. Honestly, it looks like one half of an Esmeralda costume. This is actually genius because she’s already used every over-the-top play in the book, so the best way to get people to talk about her is to basically do nothing. Honestly the most shocking part of this ensemble was the fact that Kim’s third child, Kanye, was conspicuously missing.
Bella Hadid wore the ULTIMATE “I’m going to run into my ex boyfriend and his new pop star girlfriend” slutty outfit. It looks like she was on her way to audition for Catwoman and then got a last-minute invite to the Met Gala. It’s literally the most skintight ensemble I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I’m actually wincing thinking about all of the boob tape she probably had to peel off her body at the end of the night.
Lily Collins looked like what would happen if Regina George and Janis Ian finally gave into the lesbian relationship they both denied in middle school and raised a child together.
And lastly, Rihanna won best dressed because she wins best dressed at everything these days. It’s just a thing, okay? If you Google “Met Gala 2017” it’s like 80% photographs of Rihanna. Unlike The Grammy’s when she stole the show by drinking out of a flask, this time RiRi showed everyone up by rolling around in your grandmother’s potpourri basket. She somehow managed to wear a dress (????) that could double as a second grader’s arts and crafts project and was twice the size of her body but still somehow managed to show off her underboob tattoo. She paired it with shoes that a team of people who make more money than you spent 30 minutes lacing up. What a legend.
