Met Gala: Camp: Notes on Fashion (2019) – A review

Met Gala is a fund raising event that started in 1948. Celebrities meet at a themed party and have fun. The number of participants is about 700 people and a ticket costs 30.000$.

The special thing about this event is that it is arty. It is held in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each year there is a different “theme” and the participants must dress accordingly.

This year’s theme was this:

Camp: Notes on Fashion (2019)

Camp… oh, sweet camp. Do you remember Pink Flamingos, the movie? This is the epitome of camp.

Camp is defined as “an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value”. Camp is a very interesting part of aesthetics. It is not kitsch though. Kitsch wants you to make believe that it gives you something beautiful and of good quality, while camp really tells it in your face that… well, “eat sh*t”.

I really thought this year’s theme was funny, interesting and very open. You could literally wear anything, as long as it is bad taste that wants to be bad taste and feels good in being bad taste.

The problem with modern celebrities is that most of the time they seem to wear something of bad taste, but they don’t actually intend to be bad taste, in fact, quite the opposite. In Pink Flamingos, Divine, the main character, feels good about herself. She is proud about who she is. You are camp only if you’re really proud because of your eccentricity and, ultimately, bad taste.

Today, my Instagram feed got assaulted by photos from the Met Gala 2019. Girls were wearing various dresses and I truly couldn’t find a connection between them.

For instance, Madelaine Petsch posted this photo with her dress for the camp theme:

If the theme was “tinkerbell”, then the dress would have been apropiate. But for camp? Gosh.

Let’s take a look at another Riverdale actress: Lili Reinhart.

She even wrote “Went ~camping~ last night”. Funny-ish, but… Hm.

Well, both Lily and Madelaine are very young and they have plenty of time to figure things out. On the other hand, there were these old-school celebrities… :

Kim Kardashian West posted 2 dresses. She wore one of them at the afterparty. Here they are:

Even though her dresses aren’t really bad taste and in fact the idea behind them is amazing – as if she is standing in rain and there are droplets of water pouring down on her –  I think she nailed (almost) it.

There was a big fuzz about Lady Gaga’s dress (wait, is she still a thing?). She made an “entrance” that lasted 16 long and lame minutes.

Sorry, Lady Gaga, but this is not camp, it is pure lameness. We can see that you are uncomfortable in your skin. Once again, camp is supposed to feel confortable and proud, not hysterical and attention seeker.

Dua Lipa is one of the few who seemed to enjoy her (almost camp) outfit:

Gwen Stefani was one of the few who looked camp.

Some people put on some feathers, one actually cited something about camp and feathers… People, stop copying each other, get your own ideas!

There was zero originality at this event. It had so much potential… I really hoped I would see some fashion stylized camp, but instead there were only lame attempts for attention and lots of kitsch. Meh.