MET GALA 2019: Hollywood in the Camp Fashion

The theme for the Met Gala 2019, was Camp: Notes on Fashion. Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, chose Susan Sontag’s seminal essay ‘Notes on 'Camp'’ to be inspiration behind the Costume institute's’ Spring 2019 exhibition.

What was the reason behind making a 1964 text to be the muse for a 2019 exhibition on Fashion? Sontag argues that camp is the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration... style at the expense of content... the triumph of the epicene style” and Bolton thinks that it has a lot of cultural significance. Bolton further points out that camp, “has become increasingly more mainstream in its pluralities — political camp, queer camp, pop camp, the conflation of high and low, the idea that there is no such thing as originality.” He argues at the same time that “You’ve got to be incredibly sophisticated to understand camp — look at Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs.”

‘Camp’ is a certain sense of aestheticism and not a measure of beauty, so you have a stylization which is exaggerated in its presentation but is not driven by the idea of having a particular working content behind it. Its like taste that has no particular logic or systemic rationale behind it. This sort of sensibility is ineffable. Sontag says, “What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” From Lady Gaga to Serena Williams to Harry Styles to Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Deepika Padukone, we had many in attendance presenting their own versions of Camp.

At Met Gala 2019, some styles were a hit while others were a miss, but then when you have a fashion which is not governed by any particular sense of logic but a sense of aestheticism how do we judge. Well the key here is to judge them as per your sense of aesthetics and if the sensibility portrayed appeals to you.

Here are some of the best picks from the Gala:

Billy Porter wearing The Blonds

Katy Perry wearing Moschino

Serena Williams wearing Versace

Lady Gaga wearing Brandon Maxwell

Gigi Hadid wearing Michael Kors

Harry Styles wearing Gucci

Hamish Bowles wearing Maison Margiela

Danai Gurira wearing Gabriela Hearst

Jared Leto wearing Gucci

Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart 

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth wearing Saint Laurent

James Corden and Julia Carey

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas.

Priyanka Chopra wearing Dior and Nick Jonas

Deepika wearing a Zac Posen 

Janelle Monáe wearing Christian Siriano

The best 4 outfits of the day were definitely Janelle Monáe wearing Christian Siriano and Jared Leto wearing Gucci, Danai Gurira wearing Gabriela Hearst and Hamish Bowles wearing Maison Margiela.