The Met gala theme of 1999 was “Rock Style,” and it seemed only appropriate that two daughters of world-famous rock stars—actor Liv Tyler (daughter of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler) and designer Stella McCartney (daughter of The Beatles’s Paul McCartney)—would attend the event together. It was the beginning of the maximalist noughties, but that year still had the effortlessness of the ’90s, and so the fresh-faced duo put their unabashed titles on their chest. They wore tanks emblazoned with the phrase “Rock Royalty” for their first Met gala, setting a new bar for what’s cool on the red carpet. Even cooler? McCartney invited Tyler to what she phrased as an, “event with me at the museum.”
McCartney’s process of making the now famous tanks was just as casual as her description of the event. According to the designer, she notes that she “must have found out about the theme the night before.” The morning of the Met, she took a three-pack of Hanes tanks, a uniform of McCartney’s of the time, to the vintage rock-and-roll shop Filth Mart (co-owned by Drea de Matteo of The Sopranos) in Little Italy to get the pieces customized. There, she stood with the owner to design them in real time, hacking off sleeves, adding ribbon and studs. When they were done, she headed to Tyler’s house to try on the shirts. McCartney opted for a pair of Chloé trousers that she herself had designed—McCartney was the head of the French house from 1997 to 2001—while Tyler opted for a long “very ’90s” black Comme des Garçons slip skirt. “I was freaking out about my boobs!” says Tyler. Despite worrying, Tyler and McCartney were on the front page of Women’s Wear Daily the next day.
Looking back 20 years later, the ensembles are perhaps some of the more iconic Met gala outfits. The beauty behind their memorability is that McCartney never intended these high-low ensembles to become so recognizable (That’s how the magic is made: unplanned.) “I didn’t come at it intentionally to be rebellious at all. I didn’t know what people wore,” says McCartney. For Tyler, the shirts were just a reflection of the two’s personalities. “It wasn’t really appropriate that we wore those shirts. Officially, we weren’t following the honors of the dress code. It was very cool and rebellious of Stella,” Tyler says. “It was an amazing thing, in a way. We were just being ourselves.” The moment’s incredible, devil-may-care attitude feels especially rare now in the time of social media and rabid celeb culture. McCartney perhaps sums it up the best: “In this day and age, people would really plan it and overthink it intentionally to get attention in the media,” she says. “And we really didn’t, and that is what is so lovely about it.”
Director: Max Bartick
Producer: Naomi Nishi
Editor: Victoria Mortati
Post Production Manager: Marco Glinbizzi
Additional imagery courtesy of: WWD, Adrian Monaco
Bob Dylan Photograph: Daniel Kramer
Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery, New York
Watch Liv Tyler Do Her 25-Step Beauty and Self-Care Routine:
