This year’s Met Gala was one of the wackiest yet. The theme, “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” celebrated “irony, humor, parody, pastiche artifice, theatricality and exaggeration” in dress, per the museum’s Costume Institute. And boy did the celebs deliver, with special-effects-laden gowns, diva-worthy arrivals and labor-intensive hair and makeup transformations. The Post gives you a behind-the-scenes glimpse of some of the evening’s most dramatic red-carpet moments from the designers, glam squads and stars themselves.
Divine Inspiration: To create Lupita Nyong’o’s “cartoon-vibe” beauty look, Lancôme artist Nick Barose told The Post he was inspired by “the makeup that drag queen Divine [bottom] wore in the iconic camp films of John Waters,” such as “Female Trouble,” “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray.”
A cracking look: “Avengers” actress Tessa Thompson’s Chanel look was a dominatrix dream. “Her look is very S&M, so I turned her ponytail into a whip,” her hairstylist Lacy Redway told The Post. She used more than 7 feet of hair extensions to create the style and then wrapped the ponytail in latex.
Cardi B by the numbers:
Thom Browne designed an “anatomical down-filled dress,” inspired by the female form, for the rapper.
- 2,000 Hours it took to construct
- 8 Number of wranglers who carried her train up the Met Museum’s stairs
- 35 People helped sew the dress
- 30,000 Burned and dyed coque feathers lined the hem and shoulders
- $250,000 The cost of the two ruby nipple covers sewn onto the chest of her dress, made by jeweler Stefere
Painting the town: Lady Gaga’s dramatic eye look took three sets of false lashes (one dipped in glitter!). “I taped her face back so her eyes wouldn’t be droopy,” said Sarah Tanno, a Marc Jacobs Beauty ambassador.
And while Gaga piled on the layers for her outrageous dress, Tanno said that the star didn’t wear any foundation: “I think it’s much sexier when you can see a woman’s skin.”
Heads will roll: The best accessory of the night was the dummy head created to match Gucci-clad Jared Leto’s dishy dome. It was molded by Italian special- effects factory Makinarium, which also made more than a dozen heads of models for Gucci’s runway show in February 2018. A custom head costs about $11,000, the Cut reported last year, and it took “six months and required molds of the models’ heads, as well as 3-D prints and scans.”
Dolled up: Perched on the back seat of a Chevy Corvette, Grammy award-winning country singer Kacey Musgraves rolled up to the gala as Barbie personified, in a pink leather Moschino by Jeremy Scott look inspired by a $75 doll Scott designed for the Met’s gift shop.
But you’d be hard-pressed to get your hands on the limited-edition toy, as just 500 were made. A shop sales associate told The Post that none of the dolls actually made it into the physical store — all of them sold out online in a matter of hours.
Cinderella moment: Zendaya’s 11-pound glow-in-the-dark ensemble, designed by Tommy Hilfiger, consisted of 20 carbon fiber rods, five battery packs (producing half a kilowatt of power) and 40 meters of LED lights, which took the dress from black to iridescent blue.
The starlet wanted to pay tribute to her Disney Channel past, before her new gritty HBO series “Euphoria” debuts in June.
“It’s almost like this is the last hoorah and the last time people will identify her as a Disney princess,” her stylist, Law Roach, told Vogue. “Which isn’t a bad thing.”
Flower power: Lily Collins channeled ’60s beauties with vintage white fabric roses woven into her hair. “When I saw Lily’s gown I instantly thought of Sharon Tate [above right] and Priscilla Presley’s wedding looks,” hairstylist Gregory Russell told The Post. Makeup artist Fiona Stiles created dreamy bedroom eyes with layers of lavender Lancôme shadow.
