I was resigned to not attending this year’s Met Gala. Maddeningly, I had missed one – in celebration of the fascinating Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty exhibition – because of my stroke, which at the beginning made long-distance travel complicated. Only one, mind, out of a staggering… thirtysomething that I have now attended. And then, miraculously, Marc Jacobs invited me to sit with his party. I was thrilled.
I had just three weeks to get an outfit together. That may sound like an eternity but, believe me, it is not. I called on Charles Jeffrey to concoct something in line with this year’s theme: costume art. I’ve always been intrigued by Charles, and in love with his bold and brilliant sketches (one of which, a saturated dream of brilliantly coloured crayons, looks down at me in my office). I think I phoned him on a Friday, and he said he would have an answer by Monday morning. A weekend of worrying ensued. Monday came and he said he’d love to make something for me. He showed me some ravishing 17th-century images of the Picts, who lived in Scotland in the early Middle Ages. Nude or partially clothed for battle, they had tattoos of incredible birds and beasts. We agreed that those painted elements would inspire embroideries on an 1830s-esque brown suit. When I returned for a first fitting, it seemed as though the entire office had been hard at work on my look. The interns – Annelies Annys, Hammock Jeong, Lucie Oggel and Sally Huang – were seeing to the astonishing needlework.
Incidentally, there was no time to make the shoes, so they came from Charles’s archive. There were two pairs. One, in black, fitted like a dream; but it was the other, dappled brown with gnashing claw-like silver toenails, that was perfect. Except they were a size ten and I’m a dainty seven and a half. So there was a roll of tissue paper in each shoe and God knows how many insoles. Which is why you may have seen me walking like I was some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. It was all worth it, though. Incidentally, my make-up was the work of Niko Haagenson, a friend of Charles, who lulled me into a state of beatific peace while they worked their magic on me.
I got dressed in Gramercy Park, and then hurried uptown to Amy Fine Collins’s apartment for final preparations. My driver was excessively bold. Let’s just say I skipped the queue. We had a last flurry inside the vehicle, and then it was on to the straw-coloured carpet, with hand-painted ‘steps’ by Neytt by Extraweave.
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Director Baz Luhrmann, Raúl Avila and Derek McLane (event and set designer, respectively) had excelled themselves, transforming the Met with white wisteria hanging from the ceiling, terracotta pots brimming with lavender and trompe-l’oeil cypress trees stretching out as far as the eye could see. In the grand entrance halls, I was greeted by Anna W. (in Chanel ostrich cape over an embroidered sheath), Nicole Kidman (also in Chanel) and Lauren Sánchez Bezos in Schiaparelli’s surprising take on the Met’s celebrated Madame X by Sargent, all rather unsubtle bosom and cinched waist (Julianne Moore in Bottega Veneta and Claire Foy in Erdem also paid sly and memorable compliments to the very same portrait).
Then it was back to Andrew Bolton’s astonishing exhibition, Costume Art, where I spent a good while talking with the hilarious Lena Dunham (almost swallowed up by a Valentino trained robe of scarlet sequins and coque feathers), Gwendoline Christie in an Edwardian gown of shades of red by Giles Deacon (plus extraordinary feather hat by Stephen Jones and a mask – of herself – by artist Gillian Wearing) and Aariana Rose Philip, who was in a tumble of Collina Strada black satin.
We had a giddy drink in the American Wing and then we made the long trek into the Temple of Dendur, laid out like a Tuscan garden at twilight. Marc Jacobs and his gang didn’t appear for some time. When they did, they were sensational – Serena Williams especially in Amazonian silver lamé, and Cardi B in lilac-shaded skin-tight back lace, although she was not to be taken off her phone, which I had long assumed was infra dig. The fashion designer himself, however, was the picture of sangfroid.
Then, dinner over, it was Sabrina Carpenter on stage, and she was joined by the ageless Stevie Nicks (in John Galliano for Zara). And my cup ran over.
A version of this article appears in the August 2026 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers.
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