The most glittering night on the fashion calendar is here again, as the industry’s most esteemed insiders and uber-glam celeb attendees put on the old razzle dazzle and head for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. That’s right: the 2023 Met Gala has arrived, and this year Anna Wintour, Andrew Bolton et al have decided it’s high time the world paid tribute to Kaiser Karl Lagerfeld, whose stints at Chloé, Fendi, and Chanel – and general sharp-tongued savagery – earned him a place in fashion’s gilded hall of fame.

With the Met throwing the doors open to its almost-year-long exhibition tomorrow – allowing the hoi polloi a glimpse of his vast archive and demonstrating his immeasurable impact on the way women dress – tonight, there’s the small matter of the show’s launch party to get out of the way. Since we weren’t among the lucky ones to score a cheeky $50,000 ticket (lol), Dazed Fashion will be here all night bringing you style dispatches from the sidelines (see: our sofas). Keep your eyes here and on our Instagram to see who wore what first.

DUA LIPA IN CHANEL 

One of the first celebrities to ascend this year’s Met Gala steps, Dua Lipa dressed as the Chanel bride, dressed in a full-skirted tweed gown – the finale look from Karl Lagerfeld’s AW92 couture collection, first worn by Claudia Schiffer. Dua decided to forgo the little hat and fitted jacket that came with the original ensemble, decorating herself only in a mammoth jewelled necklace. Future nostalgia, etc. The bridal look is traditionally positioned as the apex of a couture show, which means there’s going to be a bounty of jilted brides on the Met Gala’s red carpet.

EMMA CHAMERBLAIN IN MIU MIU

Though Miuccia Prada put a halt to all the slashed crop tops at her most recent Miu Miu show – replacing them with frumpish skirts and librarian cardigans – Emma Chamberlain appeared at the Met in a Choupette blue blazer (an actual colour Karl Lagerfeld named after his beloved cat) which had been hacked at the hem. It seems to be her thing given she wore a midriff-baring Louis Vuitton ensemble last year but she was never going to go full sleaze at a charity fundraiser and so decided to swap out the scissored-off skirt for a columnar counterpart and concealed her belly in a diamanté underlayer. 

NICOLE KIDMAN IN CHANEL

In a moment of self-referential superstardom, Nicole Kidman decided to cloak herself in her own iconography for this year’s Met and so wore the dress from her 2004 Chanel No.5 campaign – reminding everyone that not only was she an OG muse to Lagerfeld but that she is also aware of the word “sustainable”.

PHOEBE BRIDGERS IN TORY BURCH 

The first curveball of the night comes via Phoebe Bridgers, who’s ditched her usual emo-adjacent skeletal fare for preppy, all-American designer Tory Burch. The singer stepped onto the Met’s carpet in a floor-sweeping black tulle gown dotted with Swarovski crystals and beading.

ICE SPICE IN BALMAIN

Ahead of tonight’s kick-off rumours swirled across social media that recent collaborators Nicki Minaj and Dazed cover star Ice Spice would show up as a duo kitted out in full Chanel looks. It goes to show, then, that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear – Ice Spice showed up solo in sleek white Balmain by longtime Lagerfeld fanatic Olivier Rousteing. “It was super last minute, but we did it,” she explained on the white carpet. 

MICHAELA COEL IN SCHIAPARELLI 

Michaela Coel – who also happens to be one of this year’s co-hosts alongside Penélope Cruz, Roger Federer, and Dua Lipa – made her second appearance at the Met Gala, dressed in Daniel Roseberry’s Schiaparelli. 130,000 crystals went into the making of the nude-illusion dress, complete with starred nipples and a mammoth pearl dangling from between her legs. “I’m here to serve,” she said. 

KATE & LILA MOSS IN FENDI  

Double trouble mum and daughter duo supermodel Kate Moss and her on-the-rise model daughter Lila looked to Fendi for their looks for the night, tapping up good friend Kim Jones to let them run loose in the house’s archives (Lila) and loan them a fresh-off-the-runway gown from the SS23 couture collection (Kate). Of course, tonight was always going to be a big one for Fendi, with Lagerfeld joining the Italian house’s fold back in 1965 and staying there until his passing in 2019. 

ANOK YAI IN PRABAL GURUNG

The new-gen super stepped onto the Met steps in a show-stopping gilded silver and gold cocktail gown by NY designer Prabal Gurung. According to Yai, the two worked together on the look, taking inspo from a Chanel couture look Cindy Crawford first wore back in 1993. A vision!!!

SUKI WATERHOUSE IN FENDI AND ROBERT PATTINSON IN DIOR

…apparently have Kim Jones on a retainer, given they both opted for looks from his collections for Fendi and Dior respectively. For Waterhousei, that meant a sheer, mid-length dress dotted with embroidered flowers, and for everyone’s fave vampire, a navy suit with skirt detailing. Maybe Jones owed him a favour after the actor starred in his AW23 show, when he provided a gloomy rendition of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land alongside Gwendoline Christie? 

SYDNEY SWEENEY IN MIU MIU

Sydney Sweeney (the Miu Miu poster girl) was obviously going to wear Miu Miu for this year’s Met. She ascended the steps of the museum in a ruched and blush-hued bodycon adorned with hundreds of crystals and paillettes. Her knees were wrapped in an outsized bow – because, well, Chanel. 

MARGOT ROBBIE IN CHANEL

GASP! In a stunning turn of events Margot Robbie, who has almost exclusively worn Chanel to every single public appearance, wore Chanel. The dress, a one-shouldered gown with a plastic-panelled corset, was first worn by Cindy Crawford and was remade for the actor especially for the Met. Robbie was the last Chanel ambassador that Karl Lagerfeld had selected before he passed away – and Lagerfeld would have LOVED Barbie. 

PRECIOUS LEE IN FENDI 

Karl Lagerfeld’s fatphobic comments might have been bandied around social media in the lead-up to the Met Gala, but at the helm of Fendi, he was quietly one of the first uber-high-fashion houses catering to larger women, with the label more recently taking a step ahead of the crowd and casting the likes of Paloma Elsesser and Ashley Graham in some of their first big catwalk moments. It makes sense, then, that Fendi would want to dress new-gen supermodel Precious Lee in a stunning duchess satin bustier gown with dramatic leather opera gloves and matching headband. Next season: on the catwalk, we hope.

USHER IN BIANCA SAUNDERS

People love to berate the straight man’s decision to wear a suit at the Met Gala, but it’s a different matter when those suits have been made by ascendant, London-based designer Bianca Saunders. Usher – who was seen front row at a bevvy of shows during the AW23 season – wore a box-cut, tailored tux with a silken cravat and a bolshy broach – which is something whitebread men would still probably baulk at. 

JENNIE IN CHANEL

The Camellia flower – which sprouts from the gift boxes given at Chanel stores and can be spotted up and down Bond Street – took centre stage in Virginie Viard’s AW23 collection. It also burst forth from Jennie Kim’s petal-edged mini dress at the Met Gala. Just as the Camelia is considered an eternal motif of the house, so too is Jennie, who has been ensuring BLACKPINK fans funnel their pocket money into Chanel perfumes since she was made ambassador in 2019. 

DEVON AOKI IN JEREMY SCOTT

In the hours leading up to the Met Gala, Jeremy Scott made it his mission to share every single photo that he ever took with Karl Lagerfeld. He then turned up to the event accompanied by Devon Aoki – a shared muse of both his and Lagerfeld’s – who made her Met debut in a corsetted column fit with an angel-winged neckline and an aqueous train. The look was inspired by a piece Lagerfeld had designed for Aoki and, according to Scott, was the last thing she wore before he passed away.

LIZZO

Pearls were always going to make an appearance at a Lagerfeld retrospective and the first appearance of the night came by way of Lizzo, who wore a slit-legged sheath festooned in rows on rows of pearls that ran from neck to hip to ankle. “What’s after 7?,” the musician asked her fans on Instagram. The answer? Ate. 

KIM KARDASHIAN IN SCHIAPARELLI 

Kim – who has spent the previous two Met Galas courting controversy by turning up A) anonymised in Balenciaga and B) in Marilyn Monroe’s old dress – toned things down a little this time around. For 20203, she got Daniel Roseberry to make her an hourglass gown consisting mostly of Schiaparelli pearls. Perhaps she no longer wants to incite outrage and would simply rather be known as a bombshell advocate for shapewear – perhaps she still sees herself as a modern-day Marilyn, after all. 

KYLIE JENNER IN HAIDER ACKERMANN

This weekend, Kylie Jenner was revealed as the new face of Jean Paul Gaultier, so it makes sense that she would wear an outfit made by the designer’s latest collaborator. It also makes sense that she would wear Haider Ackermann considering he is Timothée Chalamet’s – her rumoured boyfriend’s – go-to. The look first appeared to be a satin bath gown but transformed into a scoop-necked, asymmetric bodycon once she had slipped it off her shoulders. 

BILLIE EILISH IN SIMONE ROCHA 

Billie Eilish looked like the grande dame of a historic, underground boudoir when she stepped onto the Met Gala’s Colgate-striped carpet. It was classic underwear-as-outerwear – corset, bustier, suspenders, black-lace skirt – and is perhaps one of the most risqué looks to have ever come from Simone Rocha’s atelier. If Eilish was once the poster girl for emo teens, she’s now their gothic madame.

CARDI B IN CHENG PENG

Cardi B set a new Met Gala standard and wore two looks before even making it into the venue. The first, which she wore en route, was a corsetted and jewel-encrusted Miss Sohee gown with a massive, tulle-fanned back. The second, which was immortalised on the red carpet, was a business-at-the-top, party-on-the-bottom design made by Cheng Peng. The quilted skirt referenced Chanel’s signature Boy bag and was covered in black Camelia flowers, while a stiff shirt and tie referenced Karl himself. 

BAD BUNNY IN JACQUEMUS

Simon Porte Jacquemus did what so many people have dreamed of and wrapped Bad Bunny in a hundred roses – AKA a shawl fashioned into an overblown floral arrangement. He paired that with an alabaster-white and long-line tweed jacket with a huge, scooped-out back inspired by Nicole Kidman’s Chanel No.5 ad. It was Jacquemus’ first-ever Met Gala and it’s fitting that he should bring a former face of the label as his +1.

PUFF DADDY

Puff Daddy regained the rights to his former fashion line Sean John in 2021 for $7.51 million and tonight he embodied its new iteration, dressed in a padded cape, wadded opera gloves, and a cropped tuxedo jacket. 24 years since the brand’s inception, it’s still about streetwear, luxury, and star power coming together in confident, imposing silhouettes – and a flavour of what’s to come, perhaps?

FLORENCE PUGH

The stress of attending her first Met Gala seemingly got to Florence Pugh, who shaved all her hair off before heading out to the party. Upcoming role perhaps? Anyway, the Don’t Worry Darling star naturally opted for Valentino Haute Couture – no real surprise when this week she was announced as the latest face of the uber-glam Italian house.

GIGI HADID IN GIVENCHY

Gigi called on Givenchy creative director and pal Matthew M Williams to kit her out for the event – which btw, Bella did not attend this year. The designer stopped at the top of the stairs to explain his references for the black tulle look, which included Lagerfeld’s fave orchid flowers and fan-like pintucked detailing in homage to the little paper fans he loved to waft around his face.

ALEXA CHUNG IN ROÍSÍN PIERCE

The Met Gala is a place for established designers to find their muses and shake hands with potential investors, but it’s also an opportunity to platform ascendant designers on the cusp of renown. Alexa Chung did just that and tapped Irish designer Roísín Pierce to craft her look – a sweet communion gown covered in whorls of tactile, smocked fabrics. Taken from Pierce’s Two For Joy collection, the look compounded the designer’s fascination with the romanticism of Chanel couture. “I have long been a lover of historical dress and textiles,” she says. “The reverence to craft and beautiful fabrication, all of which shine so brightly in Karl’s Chanel, and brought me further into the magical dreamscapes of couture that have – and will – continue to inspire me.”

FKA TWIGS IN MAISON MARGIELA ARTISINAL

FKA twigs thought ‘Hmmm, Karl Lagerfeld’s the one that did all the tweed, right?’ and so rifled through John Galliano’s back catalogue and picked out a Harris tweed number from his Maison Margiela Artisanal SS17 collection. That’s obviously doing her a disservice (twigs’ fashion capital spans beyond Lagerfeld and deep into Fantastic Toiles) and so she decided to telegraph her more unusual taste via a bias-cut satin skirt with a keyhole tweed insert, paired with brocade platform mules. 

MAUDE APATOW

Maude Apatow arrived at the Met alongside Olivia Wilde and Vanessa Kirby as part of Gabriela Hearst’s posse. Hearst dressed Apatow in a black column based on a 1983 design that Lagerfeld had made during his tenure at Chloé, which she took over in 2020. It was made with Maison Hurel – the embroiderers who had worked on the OG design – and had been cut out at the waist with mirrored, serpentine beads.