The theme of the first Monday in May Met Gala, “Tailoring for You”, was derived from the museum’s new exhibition “Superfine, Tailoring Black Style.” One gasped to learn that flowers tucked into the box wood “hedge,” were not real. But, the benefit dinner-dance raised a record $33 million. This prompted Lawrence “Law” Roach, the celebrity fashion stylist, best-known for his work for Zendaya, Céline Dion, Anya Taylor-Joy and the like, to exclaim with jubilation at a pre-Gala party hosted at The Red Rooster’s Ginny’s Super Club, “They done f*$@ked up and made the Met Ball Black!”
Michael Henry Adams photos
While his pronouncement was an exaggeration, more than usual, it was time for our favorite white friends to experience what it’s like to be outnumbered. And what’s more, Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx showed up and showed out!
What a trill to encounter, at so short a distance, so many of the celebrated ones, who we worship from afar. It was a rainy night to remember on the flower-sprigged blue carpet.
1. Right off the bat, there was Adrianne E. Adams, the mayoral candidate just endorsed by AG Letitia James. She sported a beautifully tailored frosted bronze pantsuit, coordinated to match her husband, Joseph J. Adams’ bow tie and pocket square.
2: The Superfine catalog cover model, Christian Latchman, wore a regal pleated white train ensemble, quite different from what he wore when we sat next to each other during the morning’s press preview. I wish I’d thought to give him his pretty pink rose.
3: The bow of smiling, sprightly Olympic gymnast Simone Biles’ sleeveless blue Harbison Studio dress, metamorphosed into a bustle with a trailing train. There can be no accessory equal to the loving gazes she received from Jonathan Owens, her handsome, white suited husband, who wisely carried a silver-mounted stick to better maneuver the steep stairs and was swathed in furs against the cold night’s damp.
4: In 1994, brilliant and beautiful, with a divine voice, singer and actor Audra McDonald first enchanted me as Julie Jordan in “Carousel” at the Roundabout Theater. Her nostalgic look, all in curvaceous, well-fitted silks, with wonderfully contrasting draperies, was also designed for her by Charles Harbison.
5: Her black silk dress draped with a short cape, articulated by intricately worked, diagonal stripes featuring cowrie shells, the woman of the hour, “Superfine” curator Monica L. Miller, was radiant!
6: After my phone died, I missed so many luminaries I could have cried: Madonna and her man; Whoopie Goldberg in unbecoming Thom Browne; and an unusually, unfortunately dressed Halle Berry, who I had thought too exquisite not to always look perfect. She escaped my camera as well.
7. Wreathed perpetually in beatific smiles, his waving hair slicked back, his shoulder draped in a boa of white coque feathers, his hands gloved in glacè kid, the blue satin collar of his lapels was striking. His shirt of waffled pique was immaculate, so that no one appeared more angelic than Tyler Mitchell at the Met Gala. And that’s as it should be for the gifted young artist who made the photographs for the “Superfine” catalog.
8: Tonya Lewis Lee and Spike Lee always make for a striking pair. His orange cap, emblazoned with his beloved Knicks, matched the conspicuous frames of his glasses and contrasted with his unerringly cut modern take on evening clothes. It also made for an impactful counterpoint to Ms. Lewis-Lee’s purple coat-dress which was also impeccably tailored, falling open above the knee, enough to be alluring without vulgarity. How consistently well turned out she has always been. For a touch of whimsy, which depending on its contents must have been useful too, Mr. Lee sported an aluminum bag that reproduced a rolling suitcase.
9: With a horizontally striped outfit that emulated the chic of Edwardian Cricketers, my friend Ikè Udè, “Superfine’s” special consultant, accompanied his friend, the knowledgeable Amy Fine Collins, arbiter of the world’s best dressed. Dressed head to toe in Thom Browne, with a color scheme close to Ikè’s red, black and white and her jauntily-tilted, diminutive, gardenia-graced top hat, she too suggested the sporty elan of pleasure-seekers of yesteryear.
10: Alton Mason, the first Black model to walk for Chanel, is an enigma of the type famously devised by Oscar Wilde. He cares about the value of everything and everyone and if it or they are important, hang the cost. That he is a beauty of nature, cannot be denied! But, that such perfection comes naturally and effortlessly, is belied by his gym regime. He always wears beautiful clothes, but he might remain equally arresting by taking them off. Wilde once said. “One must either be a work of art or wear a work of art!” Mr. Mason, unfailingly, does both.
11: We may not have flown to space like her, but all of us aspire to be well dressed, and in that regard Gayle King seldom fails. Her trailing peplum jacket, flowing into a train, was faced in tartan silk and finished by black lapels. Year in and out, she clearly works at maintaining all she has.
12: To set apart his conventional evening clothes, in addition to substituting a jeweled brooch for a necktie, Tyler Perry donned a superb bejeweled satin coat that Madea might lust for!
But, sometimes you cannot miss. And when Miss Diana Ross appeared, I was waiting, watching, and ready, with twenty-five percent power on reserve, to take her likeness and to be swept away.
All in white, her train as long as the stairs were steep, and her hat all edged by weeping ostrich plumes, her forehead and ears bejeweled, she was like no one else one sees today. Perhaps, she reminded one a bit of “Hello Dolly”? But one where Pearl Bailey, Carol Channing, and Barbra Streisand are all rolled into one Miss Ross! The delicacy of each gesture, the utter charm of her laugh, the entire gift-wrapped picture she manifested, made it a night to remember always.