Met Gala Fashion 2022: Best Red Carpet Dresses, Celebrity Outfits, Looks

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There’s no red carpet like the Met Gala, and the Met Gala fashion of 2022 is a prime example of that.

The Met Gala—also known as the Met Ball, the Costume Institute Gala and the Costume Institute Benefit—is an annual fundraising event held each year on the first Monday in May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The event benefits the museum’s Costume Institute, also known as the Anna Wintour Costume Center named after Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who has co-chaired the Met Gala since 1995.

The Met Gala started in 1948 by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert as a fundraiser for the Costume Institute. In 1973, the Met Gala introduced its first theme, “The World of Balenciaga.” Since then, the event has dozens of themes that attendees, including actors, singers, models and social media stars, have had to follow as part of the Met Gala’s dress code. The 2018 theme was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” The 2019 theme was “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” The 2022 theme was “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.”

“The 2022 Met Gala will ask its attendees to embody the grandeur—and perhaps the dichotomy—of Gilded Age New York,” reads Vogue’s description of the Met Gala 2022 theme. “The period, which stretched from 1870 to 1890 (Mark Twain is credited with coining the term in 1873), was one of unprecedented prosperity, cultural change, and industrialization, when both skyscrapers and fortunes seemingly arose overnight.”

The description continued, “For the upper echelon, fashion during that period was one of excess. Thanks to recent innovations of electric and steam-powered looms, fabric became faster and cheaper to produce. As a result, women’s dresses often featured a combination of many textiles, like satin, silk, velvet, and fringe, all adorned with over-the-top textures like lace, bows, frills, and ruffles. (The unofficial edict? The more going on, the better.)”

But back to the red carpet. From the Kardashians to Emma Chamberlain, see below for the best Met Gala fashion of 2022 and who made fashion history on the red carpet.

Rosalia

Olivia Rodrigo

Nicki Minaj

Lizzo

Kylie Jenner

Kourtney Kardashian & Travis Barker

Kim Kardashian & Pete Davidson

Khloe Kardashian

Kendall Jenner

Katy Perry

Gwen Stefani

Danai Gurira

Cardi B

Cara Delevingne

Dakota Johnson

Miranda Kerr

Lily Aldridge

Jessica Chastain

Jasmine Tookes

Gigi Hadid

Dove Cameron

Wearing Brilliant Earth earrings.

Tessa Thompson

Nicola Coughlan

Naomi Campbell

Megan Thee Stallion

Maggie Rogers

Madelaine Petsch

Kate Moss

Hailey Bieber

Chloe Bailey

Ariana DeBose

Addison Rae

Winnie Harlow

Teyana Taylor

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sabrina Carpenter

Rachel Brosnahan

Paloma Elsesser

Kris Jenner & Corey Gamble

Hillary Clinton

Chloe Fineman

Billie Eilish

Alicia Keys

Venus Williams

Shawn Mendes

Phoebe Dynevor

Normani

Mindy Kaling

Michelle Yeoh

Maude Apatow

Joe Jonas & Sophie Turner

Joan Smalls

HoYeon Jung

Gemma Chan

Evan Mock

Emma Stone

Chloe Grace Moretz

Camila Mendes

Camila Cabello

Ashley Park

Chloe Kim

Tommy Dorfman

Wearing Christopher Kane.

Kaia Gerber

Janelle Monáe

Wearing Ralph Lauren.

Blake Lively

Wearing Versace.

Kacey Musgraves

Wearing Ralph Lauren.

Emma Chamberlain

Wearing Louis Vuitton.

Vanessa Hudgens

Wearing Moschino.

La La Anthony

Anna Wintour

What is the Met Gala 2022 theme? The Met Gala 2022 theme is “In America: An Anthology of Fashion,” a part two to the 2021 theme, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” According to Vogue, the theme has an emphasis on gilded glamour and white tie attire. “The 2022 Met Gala will ask its attendees to embody the grandeur—and perhaps the dichotomy—of Gilded Age New York,” reads Vogue’s description of the Met Gala 2022 theme. “The period, which stretched from 1870 to 1890 (Mark Twain is credited with coining the term in 1873), was one of unprecedented prosperity, cultural change, and industrialization, when both skyscrapers and fortunes seemingly arose overnight.”

The description continued, “For the upper echelon, fashion during that period was one of excess. Thanks to recent innovations of electric and steam-powered looms, fabric became faster and cheaper to produce. As a result, women’s dresses often featured a combination of many textiles, like satin, silk, velvet, and fringe, all adorned with over-the-top textures like lace, bows, frills, and ruffles. (The unofficial edict? The more going on, the better.)”

Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, also told Vogue in 2022 about how the museum’s Met Gala 2022 exhibition—which is presented across the 13 American period rooms of the Met—“provides a historical context for Lexicon, in a way.” “The stories really reflect the evolution of American style, but they also explore the work of individual tailors, dress-makers, and designers,” he continued. “What’s exciting for me is that some of the names will be very familiar to students of fashion, like Charles James, Halston, and Oscar de la Renta, but a lot of the other names really have been forgotten, overlooked or relegated into the footnotes of fashion history. So one of the main intentions of the exhibition is to spotlight the talents and contributions of these individuals, and many of them are women.”

Who are the Met Gala 2022 hosts? The Met Gala 2022 co-chairs are Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Regina King and Lin=Manuel Miranda. Designer Tom Ford and Instagram executive Adam Mosseri are honorary co-chairs, alongside Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.

The Met Gala 2022 is on May 2, 2022. The Met Gala has been held each year on the first Monday in May since the early Met Galas.

The Met Gala 2022 will be held at the Metropolitan Musem of Art on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The event has been held at The Met since the early Met Galas.

For more about Anna Wintour and the Met Gala, read Amy Odell’s 2022 book, Anna: The Biography. The biography—which was named as Bloomberg’s “10 Most Compelling Books to Put on Your Reading List This Spring”—follows Wintour’s life and career, from her childhood as a tomboy in the 1950s to how she found her love of fashion as a teenager in 1960s London. The book also dives into how Wintour became the editor-in-chief of Vogue after she left high school to work at a boutique in London and made her way to New York, where she started her career at Condé Nast and made a name for herself as the fashion media powerhouse the world knows today. Written by former Cosmopolitan editor Amy Odell, Anna gives a candid look into Wintour’s personal story and the “hierarchical dynamics of the fashion industry” still foreign to outsiders. “Anna charts the relentless ambition of the woman who would become an icon,” the publisher’s description reads.

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