The Met Gala's Shallow Tribute To Karl Lagerfeld

It’s no secret that Karl Lagerfeld was one of fashion’s most polarising (i.e. problematic) figures. With his instantly recognisable villain-core aesthetic and a penchant for the controversial — this is the man with infamous quips such as ‘You want to create boredom? Be politically correct in your conversation’, and 'sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life, so you bought some sweatpants' — the German designer is no doubt a fashion legend. So, when Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, announced his latest exhibition would be a retrospective of Lagerfeld’s illustrious career, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. 

After all, the German designer’s legacy isn’t one to scoff at. Since he first moved to Paris in 1952 to his death in 2019, like it or not, Lagerfeld was one of fashion’s defining voices. Bolton’s exhibition, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty charts the designer’s immense influence on the industry, featuring designs from his time as creative director of Balmain, Chloé, Patou, Fendi, his eponymous label, and, of course, Chanel leaving no shortage of inspiration for today's fashion elite to show up and show out for the annual Met Gala. From custom couture to the craziest vintage pulls, here's your rundown of how the fashion elite paid homage to the controversial designer. 

‘The allure of the show, apart from his incredible creativity, is, ‘who was this man?’’, Bolton told Tim Blanks in The Business of Fashion Podcast. The OG polymath of modern fashion, Lagerfeld was an enigmatic creative who found inspiration in everything, referencing the historic and the contemporary with equal enthusism. As the opening night of the highly anticipated retrospective, fashion’s biggest designers (some, like Donatella Versace being close friends of Lagerfeld), took a stab at answering that very question.

There was no shortage of monochromatic looks this year as Hollywood’s brightest stars made their way up the Met’s famous steps in their very best Karl Lagerfeld drag. Some took cues from the Kaiser's own uniform, like Jessica Chastain who paired her black boudoir-bound Gucci gown with oversized shades and platinum hair, or Kendall Jenner in a sequin Marc Jacobs bodysuit fitted with an exaggerated high-collar. However, a majority of antendees just couldn’t seem to separate Karl from Chanel.

After all, Lagerfeld revived the maison in 1984 when he was appointed creative director, refreshing Coco Chanel's codes for younger consumers. At the Met Gala this meant tweed, pearls and camellias were inescapable. Certified Met Gala titans Rihanna and Kim Kardashian both wore custom Scchiaparelli looks, which could easily be mistaken as AI generated designs with a prompt like 'Chanel in the style of Daniel Roseberry.' Likewise, Thom Browne fitted today's it-girls Jenna Ortega, Bella Ramsey and Janelle Monae in sculptural tweed tailoring. Monae pairing her playful hoop-skirt with a variation of the brand's Hector bag shaped like Lagerfeld's cat Choupette.

I can't decide if Choupette being a recurring theme of the evening was a shock or not. As fashion's most famous feline, the Burmese who Lagerfeld adopted in 2011 has amassed a following of over 200,000 with the Instagram account @choupettesdiary showcasing its jet-setting lifestyle. As one of the designer's closest companions, Choupette was a muse to Lagerfeld inspiring his designs across fashion and beauty. Over the weekend Kim Kardashian made headlines when she posted photos of her with Choupette prompting questions about whether we could expect the geriatric cat to be her date for the evening. This was squashed just before Vogue's live stream coverage began as Choupette took to Instagram to announce she would be enjoying the festivities from the comforts of home.

Still, seeing Jared Leto in a hyper-realistic cat suit like a rich furry certainly wasn't on my Met Gala bingo card. Nor was Doja Cat in cat-like prosthesis meowing her answers during red carpet interviews. The most ergregious of the night was Lil Nas X who took his Choupette cosplay to showgirl level proportions, wearing nothing more than silver glitter, a thong, and sky-high platforms.

Arguably the greatest sartorial triumphs of the night came from those who wore vintage looks designed by Lagerfeld himself. Nicole Kidman sent Twitter into a frenzy (what else is new), when she arrived wearing the dress she wore in the 2004 commercial for Chanel No. 5 directed by Baz Luhrmann. Co-chairs Dua Lipa and Penelope Cruz followed suit showing up in looks from A/W 92 and S/S 88 respectively. And while Olivia Wilde and filmmaker Margaret Zhang committed the ultimate fashion faux-pas wearing the same Chloé violin dress from 1983, the dress presented Lagerfeld's playful wit in a way none of the night's inspired designs could. Similarly, Kidman, Lipa and Cruz's choices felt like a much more honest representation of the creative tour de force than the aesthetic pastiches that dominated the night.

But what would Lagerfeld have thought of the pageantry? It's impossible to say. As Bolton questions in The Business of Fashion podcast, was Lagerfeld 'trying to hide who he was by his prolific, relentless output that never, ever stopped?'. Seldom without his oversized shades, the silver-haired Lagerfeld was both instantly recognisable and enigmatic, with much of his design language dictated by the existing motifs of the brand's he worked for.

Where the Met Gala missed the mark this year was being unable to scratch beneath the surface of the obvious visual markers that defined Lagerfeld. The reliance on the obvious resulted in cliché references and silly stunts, rather than painting an honest portrait of the problematic maestro that would have otherwise provided insight into why we should revere him in the first place. Or would Kaiser prefer things stay superficial? He did tell Zeitmagazin in 2010 'I'm sorry, but I hate scruffy intellectuals'. Let's just hope Bolton's exhibition digs deeper than this year's guests.