“A very casual, bodega store run look,” Paloma Elsesser explains to the camera, her face scattered in Swarovski crystals as the lens clouds over in got2b hairspray. “We’re going to the Met Gala, bitch!” The fast ascendant model is sitting in a private suite at The Mark Hotel as she preps for the 2023 Met Gala with designer Raul Lopez. The duo have been friends since they were teens and will later climb the Colgate-flecked steps of the Met in matching Luar, with Elsesser dressed in an ink-blue gown inspired by one of Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel haute couture collections from 1999. 

With its hulking and crystal-encrusted shoulders, cinched waist and dramatic train, the look compounded the fierce, deltoid silhouette which has surfaced across Lopez’s recent collections and landed him on the semi-finalist list for this year’s LVMH Prize. “It’s uptown-downtown, classic, sophisticated,” as Elsesser says. “It’s giving villain.” There’s a bit of mythology to what actually goes on in the run-up to the Met Gala: the behemoth glam teams, the turmeric shots, the people carriers that look more like limos – all of which play backdrop to the BFFs’ Met Gala photo album.

Click through the gallery above to see all the BTS shots from Paloma Elsesser and Raul Lopez’s pre-Met Gala ritual, and head over here for the rest of the evening’s looks.