In Vogue: The 90s (2024) s01e04 Episode Script

1
[woman] Good evening and welcome
to the Met Gala
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
right in New York City.
It's gonna be epic.
Oh, my God, the Met Gala is legendary.
The Met Gala is like
the Super Bowl of fashion.
[Enninful] The best designers
in the world gather to celebrate fashion.
The Met Gala is truly
a place where the designers can flex
and show their couture ability.
[reporter] Fans watched
as Met Gala darling
Blake Lively literally transformed
her look into a patina princess.
And the godmother of it all,
Anna Wintour.
People enjoy seeing fashion at its best.
Theatre, fantasy,
a world of creativity.
The Met Gala is also the place
where fashion and celebrity really mix.
It is like an onslaught of lenses
and people screaming out your name.
It's pure, utter glamour.
And it is the place to go,
[gasps] "Who's that over there?
Who's that over there?"
It has become about fashion
as entertainment
and keeping people fascinated.
[Enninful] The Met Gala has become
this cultural phenomenon.
But it wasn't always like that.
This is the story of how Vogue and Anna
created the most important fashion event
in the world.
[indistinct chatter]
'Cause I don't know about being that.
Yeah, so, less messy.
-Maybe.
-Yeah.
-[Wintour] You have to see it.
-That's all right.
-[Wintour] Yeah, like that.
-That's good. Yeah.
When I think about the Met,
I think about the extraordinary breadth
of talent and creativity and design.
And I think that's what the Met
needs to be.
The women, we've tried bow ties
and no bow ties.
Some of the violinists
feel like the bow ties get in the way.
Well, you know, it could
What if we do a Karl collar,
but maybe just a tiny little button,
like Karl used to have the shirts
that buttoned up, like mid-19th century.
Yep. Yeah.
Baz, he's into every single detail.
And to have that maestro eye gives me
so much confidence.
[Luhrmann] And then maybe a little bit
more weight on there.
It's good. And then maybe something
on here, right? So, it's like a little
The story of us and Anna
is we've become great friends,
but we also believe, and I think
possess and own the same values.
Embracing of the new, looking forward,
not trying to hang on with your claws
to, like, the past
while not throwing the past away.
And if it becomes problematic
-Yeah.
-Maybe nothing.
Maybe nothing.
Today, the Met Gala
is the single most watched
fashion event in the world.
-The shoes have to sparkle.
-Right, the shoes are like, big statement.
On we go.
But it's taken us 25 years
to build into the event that has become
the household name,
the global name that it has become today.
People think the Met Gala
is a relatively recent phenomena.
It was something that began in 1948.
In the very beginning, the Met Ball,
it was very small and elitist.
[Kors] It was a very private little party.
The Upper East Side of New York,
socialites,
a word we don't even hear any more.
And it stayed that way
for quite some time.
[Elizabeth Hurley] But in the early '90s,
I don't know if the general public knew
what the Met Gala was.
I think it was just the industry.
God, it was so different.
It was just like another one
of those things
that you kind of went to
that was a fashion thing.
And I got home from work and I was like,
"Shall we go?"
And it's like, "Yeah,
all right, then, let's go."
But then in 1995,
everything started to change.
[reporter] Last night's New York Gala
had beauty, it had class,
but most importantly, it had style.
After years at the helm,
Mrs William F. Buckley Jr. decided
to step out of the limelight
and turn things over
to Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
[Wintour] The first Met that
I worked on was back in 1995.
[reporter] Everyone who was anyone
in the fashion world was there.
Oscar de la Renta, Tommy Hilfiger,
Calvin Klein, Kate Moss,
Isaac Mizrahi and Gianni Versace.
[Wintour] There was
no traditional red carpet.
It was just a mix of people
from the fashion industry
and socialites and donors to the museum.
The Met Gala in 1995, I probably
would have gone as a guest of Calvin.
It was low-key.
It felt very inside baseball
in kind of the coolest way.
I went to Anna's first
Met Gala in 1995,
and I wore a dress from a thrift shop
in Pittsburgh where I was shooting.
[chuckles] I've worked really hard since
to right that wrong.
[Wintour] We were just starting out,
but I realised
there was an opportunity there
and to bring the world of fashion
to a much broader audience.
The Met couldn't be kept
in an ivory tower for ladies
who lived on the Upper East Side.
We needed to broaden it out
and reflect the moment.
[Enninful] At the time,
there was a huge shift happening
and it felt like the beginning
of a whole new world.
Fashion, music, film
The arts were just blending.
But until the mid-'90s, we hadn't actually
seen the fashion world at the movies.
Here's my process.
I get inspired somehow, somewhere,
from the ballet, from dance,
from a movie, from something.
And from there,
I do all these millions of sketches.
It's one, two three 14, 15, 16.
Same jacket. Minus that figure, right.
[Wintour] Unzipped was the first
fly-on-the-wall documentary about fashion.
Here, hold that, would you? Oh, Naomi.
No, that's coming out.
[Campbell] No, the ring doesn't come out.
The chain and the little
[Mizrahi] Mary.
I can't. It closes up.
It closes up in an hour.
I have to get it redone again.
[Mizrahi] Well,
20 minutes you'll be on the runway.
It lifted the curtain on the experience
of creating a collection,
the experience of a fashion show,
the experience of actually being
a fashion designer.
[photographer] Beautiful.
-You're a little close
-Yeah, exactly.
-It's like, my pores are not that small.
-Exactly.
We did not know what the hell
we were doing when we made Unzipped.
But you realised that there was a great
form of entertainment in the making.
When Isaac created that documentary,
it was opening up a world that previously
had been very hidden from the public.
We just kept shooting
and shooting and shooting.
No one was doing something like that.
And it was just full of fashion people.
First time I met him,
he was filming Unzipped.
I didn't even know him before that.
-[Mizrahi] Where are you from?
-Okla.
Oklahoma? You're such a liar.
I swear to God.
He was so ahead of his time to kind of be
documenting fashion in that way.
Isaac, why do you always give me
the flat shoes
and you always give Maomi McCampbell
the high heels?
You gave me slippers for my finale
last season. Every single time!
The success of Unzipped
showed there was a huge appetite
for fashion as entertainment.
You could watch Isaac
being this impresario backstage.
Go music.
Let's go, let's go.
That was him. That's what he liked to be.
He liked to be front and centre.
I've never been at a show
with so much energy,
and editors clapping, talking, screaming.
It was like a star was born.
I think it really kind of switched
the whole lens of everything.
He brought fashion
into the world of popular culture
in a way
that had not been explored before.
[Goodman] Fashion had dipped its toe
into popular culture,
and Anna recognised that.
[Kors] Anna looked at the Gala and said,
"You're having a conversation
with yourself.
"Why aren't we making this night
more inclusive, more engaging,
"and not just fashion?"
[Bolton] Anna's talent
is identifying those lightning rods.
The people that will generate buzz
and that will generate interest.
I think that transformed the Gala.
[reporter] Last night was
the Metropolitan Museum's Gala opening,
celebrating 50 years of Dior.
Though it was Dior they were celebrating,
most eyes were on the guest of honour,
Princess Diana.
[Bowles] Princess Diana
at the Met Gala was
quite a coup, I suppose.
[reporter] She was in the company
of the evening's co-chair,
her friend, Harper's Bazaar editor,
Liz Tilberis.
Princess Diana had that ability to light
up a room when she walked into it.
[Bowles] It sort of gave
a new flavour to the Met.
Princess Diana understood fashion,
and she enjoyed looking her best.
I think it's something
that she wears beautifully,
and I think she's here tonight
to support it.
And it worked, and she connected.
As the Met grew in its star power
and global media recognition,
and that brought, I think,
the right kind of spotlight to the night.
[Bowles] After that, I knew the Met Gala
would change in some way.
I didn't quite conceive
how much it would change. [chuckles]
[Luhrmann] Back of the hand is going to
page that garment like that,
and the flute, come here, yeah.
-So, shall we do it one more time?
-One more, last time.
Guys, we'll do it one more,
but just actually imagine
Just imagine that you are there,
and actually engage with the musicians
as they're going around you.
It's good to put everyone
under pressure they'll feel on the night,
which is there's gonna be
a lot of interesting-looking folk
looking back at you,
with big dresses in the way.
We ready? Take our first position, please.
[eclectic classical music playing]
The Gala is one of the great events
of the year.
But I think one has to look beyond
that spectacularness
to see what it really is doing,
which is to get the public to appreciate
what the Costume Institute offers.
The Costume Institute is consistently
the number one most visited exhibition
in the Metropolitan Museum.
Every year, Andrew Bolton, the curator,
thinks of some extraordinary idea
or theme.
Punk or Camp or Anglomania.
The Met Gala was invented as a fundraiser
for these exhibitions.
We rely on the Met Gala for our salaries,
our operating costs, our acquisitions.
It's our primary source of funding.
In 2023, we are celebrating
the life and work
of the extraordinary Karl Lagerfeld.
[Enninful] The Met
is where fashion meets art.
[Goodman] And the mission
of the Costume Institute
is to promote and celebrate fashion
as an art form within the halls
of the Met Museum.
The Costume Institute at the Met
is the largest collection existing
in a museum today.
My job is to support
the work of Andrew Bolton.
Andrew is presenting
those exhibitions in a way
that the wider public
will understand and appreciate.
And it's so rewarding
when you walk around the exhibition
and see how engrossed the visitors are.
They are really studying the work
in a way that is It's why we do it all.
[reporter 1] Entertainment and fashion
drew together Monday night in New York
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
[reporter 2] Madonna, Elton John,
Cher, Gwyneth Paltrow.
All of these stars and more turned out
to pay tribute
to the work of the designer to the stars,
Gianni Versace.
[Bowles] In the 1990s,
no designer did more
to change the direction of the Met Gala
than Gianni Versace.
Gianni was a showman,
you know, he understood the importance
of having celebrities
and lots of cameras
and a feeling of excitement.
The whole Versace experience
is the experience of celebrity,
movie star, music,
all of that is vital for today.
I just remember always looking forward
to going to Gianni's shows
because there was something about bringing
fashion to life in a very original way.
[Versace] I always say be yourself is
the only fashion you can wear, it's you.
That is Versace, it was a philosophy I had
from when I was very young.
Gianni Versace
He had his clear vision
and that's why I loved working with him.
I think I missed one show when I had
to fly to meet President Mandela,
and I was really scared to tell him,
Donatella and I were scared to tell him.
Finally, when we told him, he said,
"You have to go."
He then made 50 shirts and gave me
to take to President Mandela.
[Wintour] Gianni had this
amazing love of life.
He was a very close friend of mine,
we spent holidays together.
He would pack everything up himself,
and we would cross the road
in front of the house and go to the beach.
No security, just us and the children.
He didn't lock himself away,
and I think that's why
he always believed in
walking to the newsagent by himself.
Which was such a tragic decision.
[reporter 1] Fashion designer
Gianni Versace was murdered today,
gunned down outside his mansion
in Miami Beach, Florida.
[reporter 2] Police say Versace was
targeted on his usual morning walk.
[reporter 3] Versace was opening
the front gates of his beachfront home
when a man in his 20s shot him.
It was a profound loss.
It was a loss for the fashion world.
It was a loss for everybody.
I got a phone call 10 minutes before I got
to Rome and I didn't believe it.
Now we're never gonna see him again
and it's so unfair. It's not fair.
When Gianni died, I felt a lot of grief.
A lot of grief and not knowing
how to cope with the grief.
We're all human,
and I leave it there.
[Valletta] Gianni Versace
was beloved by many people,
but he was also an icon and a giant
in our industry and the world at large.
To have lost him that way
and so violently and it just
I can't even tell you how shocked
I think we all were.
There was nothing pretentious
about Gianni.
Always treating people with great respect
and living a true life.
[Bowles] Vogue wanted to celebrate Gianni,
and I wrote the piece saying
what an incredible designer he was.
And I think that for Anna, it was a way
of saying goodbye to him.
He was an extremely influential designer,
an extremely brilliant designer
who certainly deserved to have
that exhibition at the Met.
[reporter] Friends of Versace say
that it was one of his dreams
to have his work on display
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
so now his wish has certainly come true.
I like the world to see Gianni work.
Not only fashion people with the chance
to come to every fashion show
during his career,
but also people from the streets.
It represent my brother in a great way
as he want to be represented, absolutely.
[Wintour] I give a lot of credit
to the museum that they understood
that it was important to remember him,
and they were able to create
an extraordinary exhibition in his memory.
[photographers clamouring]
[reporter] The evening was
full of fashion, finery and fun,
but at its heart was the memory
of their friend, designer Gianni Versace.
[Evangelista] He had friends
in every corner, you know?
The music people,
he had the Hollywood people,
of course, the fashion crowd.
He had everybody.
Everybody wanted to celebrate Gianni.
I'm just thrilled, you know,
it's been a long time coming
and we just hope we're gonna have
a wonderful night in his memory.
There was a real feeling of solidarity,
and suddenly, the Met Gala started
to have more importance.
And so the Met Gala became a moment,
a photo-op moment,
that was a dream for contemporary culture.
Melding fashion
and pop icons of the moment.
[Wintour] When I look back at that night,
I think that was the night
that began the big change
of how people looked at the Met.
Yeah, that might have influenced
the direction that the Met Gala took.
Maybe it was the beginning
of what it's become today.
I would always sit at home
and dream of the Met Gala
and look online, and just stay home
that night just to look at the pictures
and see the feed on the Internet
of what everyone was wearing.
[modem dialling up]
Imagine a world
where every word ever written,
every picture ever painted,
and every film ever shot
could be viewed instantly in your home
via an information superhighway.
[Bryant Gumble] What is Internet anyway?
What, do you write to it, like mail?
Allison, can you explain what Internet is?
In the late '90s, the Internet
changed everything so radically.
That little mark with the A
and then the ring around it?
-"At".
-See, that's what I said.
Katie said she thought it was "about".
-Yeah.
-Oh.
[Jonathan van Meter] Internet Explorer
ended up in everybody's living rooms
and I think it, like, instantaneously
affected the way the culture,
it sort of forced a turning of the page
somehow right in the middle of the decade.
[reporter] Fashion invades cyberspace
as computer technology
and the fashion world merge.
Today, countless fashion designers
have websites on the Internet.
[Goodman] The first person to actually
live stream a fashion show
was the Austrian designer Helmut Lang.
[Bowles] Helmut Lang absolutely moved
with the times.
The clothes were super simple
but with great nuances of cut.
And I think he became really one
of most important designers of the '90s.
Helmut Lang was very influential
at this point
and kind of ahead of the game for sure.
Suddenly, fashion really is democratic.
Even if you live on a farm in Australia,
you're at the show.
You are welcome to join the party.
[Goodman] And if there was
one thing that confirmed
fashion was reaching a wider audience,
it was the arrival of a new TV show,
Sex and the City.
You have to give Sex and the City credit
for being a showplace for fashion.
It is a phenomenon, right?
[Parker] I was a woman writing
a column in New York
talking about intimate relationships
with her female friends,
with the backdrop of a city that was like
all tingly and alive and
fashion.
You know, the first season we shot,
we were at a budget.
It was very modest.
We were begging and borrowing
from, really, only from warehouses,
which in some ways I wonder
was the genesis for Carrie
wearing so many thrift store pieces,
because that's what we could afford.
All the clothes were loaned,
and Patricia Field was the big designer
that dressed her for that show,
and put her style on the map.
Its uniqueness in tone and fashion
in New York was arresting.
Everybody was talking about it,
and the curiosity and interest just grew.
[Goodman] The turning point
was when fashion designers
started to work with the show.
And then one day, Fendi took a gamble
and decided to loan
Sex and the City this bag.
[Goodman] In one episode,
Carrie gets mugged
and the guy doesn't want her phone
or her wallet.
He wants her Fendi Baguette.
Give me your bag.
-What?
-Your bag.
-It's a Baguette.
-Let me have it.
[Parker] The Fendi Baguette moment
just hit a nerve and people went bananas.
[chuckles]
When she carried the Fendi Baguette,
that took off.
It's one of those miracles of suggestion
that that was the bag to have.
She put it on the map.
And I remember going into Fendi
with my sister
and it was just like looking at a wall
of pick-and-mix sweets.
You had to have that bag.
[Bowles] When the brands
clicked with Sex and the City,
they really threw everything at it.
[Parker] The loan of that Fendi bag
really changed everything.
It just opened doors for us.
All of a sudden, we had far more access
to important designers and couture.
It went from Fendi not being sure
whether to send their bags
into Sex and the City
to Dior giving them the keys to the store.
[Goodman] Of course, when Carrie finally
saunters into the Dior store in Paris,
her dreams of sophistication
come crashing down.
Bonjour, madame.
-Bonjour. [exclaims]
-[all gasp]
To have powerhouse brands like Dior
open their doors to Sex and the City
was a massive moment for fashion.
[Bowles] In one episode,
Carrie even gets the job
every fashion-obsessed New York girl
dreams about. Writing for Vogue.
[Carrie] I had just submitted
my first freelance article
for one of the most relevant
and provocative magazines
on the newsstands today, at least to me.
Vogue. Also known as Mecca,
where I belong.
We always say that was because Fendi
gave us the chance.
Sex and the City really invited the public
into this niche world of fashion
that had been quite elitist before,
and they couldn't get enough.
[Enninful] Now fashion houses
have entire departments
dedicated to getting their products
to TV and film.
After Sex and the City aired,
there was this kind of new relationship
in terms of entertainment with fashion.
Fashion was no longer a cottage industry
but had now crossed over into mainstream.
The whole world wanted to know
what was happening in this
ever-growing industry.
[announcer] Live from New York City,
this is the 1999 VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards.
[narrator] For the first time ever,
the hottest rock stars,
the most beautiful models,
and the best-known designers
together in one room.
In 1999, Anna decided to sponsor
the VH1 Awards.
VH1 was the YouTube of the time,
and it expanded our universe.
[photographers clamouring]
The music scene was so important
at this point,
and for me, personally,
this seems like a no-brainer.
It was a thrilling concept, really,
this idea that you were going to marry
fashion with the wider pop culture.
And the winner is Marlon Brando.
Wow! No, it's Lenny Kravitz.
Alexander McQueen.
[both] Jennifer Lopez!
[cheers and applause]
The first Vogue VH1 Fashion Awards
I remember very clearly.
The Women's Wear Designer
of the Year is
Because I won.
Tom Ford for Gucci!
Which was great.
I'd like to thank Vogue and VH1
and the Style Council for this award.
Thank you. Thank you.
[Goodman] The VH1 Awards gave fashion
an even broader reach
because it was broadcast
all over the world.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Can you imagine that exposure?
All of a sudden, fashion was coming at you
from all angles,
from awards to Hollywood.
You were bombarded
everywhere you went with fashion.
The influence on the Met Gala
would be major. Major.
[reporter] The 51st Annual Costume
Institute Gala
rocked the Metropolitan Museum of Art
on the Upper East Side.
This year's theme is Rock Style.
Well, I just did a book called Rock Style.
And the book is a history
of rock stars' costumes over the years.
And that influenced the Met
as to what should go into this exhibit.
It was a little bit rebellious for the Met
and for what Anna had been doing
prior to that.
So, that night
was like a major costume party.
[people clamouring]
With everyone dressed like rock stars.
A lot of really cool people turned out.
You have so many icons in other industries
wanting to be a part of the Met Gala.
Fashion and rock 'n' roll meet together,
we jam, we have a good time, we party.
Rock 'n' roll is attributed
a lot to fashion,
and fashion is attributed
a lot to rock 'n' roll. So
It's like two peas in a pod.
I mean, music and fashion,
one created the other
and I think it's come to here.
[woman] And we've got
Stella McCartney over here.
That's Liv Tyler.
I remember, I went with Liv Tyler
'cause she was one of my best friends.
And we really didn't know what to expect.
I was like, "What am I gonna wear?"
And I'd bought these vests
and I went down to a place
called Filth Mart,
I asked them if they would customise
these vests for me.
They were like, "When do you need them?"
I said, "I need them in three hours."
And they were like, "Okay."
And I remember going
and picking Liv up at her apartment.
And she had a makeup artist
and a hairdresser, and I was just, like,
"Wait a minute, what is that?"
She's like,"I'm having my hair
and makeup done."
And I was like, "You're getting your what
and what done?"
Shoot these two.
[McCartney] We didn't know what the hell
we were letting ourselves in for.
We went up the stairs, we both were like,
"What the hell was that?"
We couldn't believe what was going on.
We were literally fish out of water.
I will never forget Stella McCartney
and Liv Tyler's Rock Royalty T-shirts.
I'm sure they haven't either. [chuckles]
Then the next day,
we were on the cover of, like, WWD.
Which apparently was a big deal.
We didn't know.
It was copied everywhere,
which was just completely unexpected.
I remember I had a fitting
and I swear to God that Gisele came in
in one of those rip-offs, to my fitting.
I remember being like, "Gisele!"
[Coddington] The Met had grown.
[whooshing]
Yeah.
It had become the place to be invited.
It had overwhelmed, I would say,
even the Oscars.
[Bowles] But while the red carpet
was forging ahead,
the runway was being left behind.
[Wintour] It was a different world.
You would go to Paris
and sit in a very uncomfortable chair
and just watch the girls come out
in very, very slow motion.
And up down, up down.
And some music.
And there was nothing beyond that.
Alexander McQueen
was the first to see that
and understand what a show could be.
The idea of fashion show,
really, as entertainment.
Fashion, what does it mean to you?
It means change. Constant change.
That's the way I thrive,
is because I have to do something new.
What's the point of doing it
if it's not new?
42-71.
Lee wouldn't really accept no.
He wanted to push the boundaries.
He just kept going. I mean,
all of the shows were like that.
It was always doing something
never done before, really challenging,
a real puzzle as to how the team
were gonna make it work.
My God, this is
like a 10,000 people job, this.
[man] I'm not gonna do all of this.
[Goodman] The famous, famous show
that Alexander McQueen did
is utter brilliance in my opinion.
It's unparalleled.
What Alexander did was change
how clothes should be presented.
Then I remember the show finished,
we thought the show was done.
Out came Shalom in this white fabric,
but it had a belt.
And, "What's going on?"
There was no rehearsal,
I didn't hear the music.
This was purely spontaneously improvised,
every moment of it.
Out came these robots
who then started spraying Shalom.
[audience exclaiming]
I remember, literally,
the audience gasping.
[Harlow] It was iconic.
It almost looked like a pagan ritual.
Lee was expressing a lot of incredible
pathos in this moment.
I mean, it was incredibly emotional.
I think that's the first time tonight
that I was blown away by my own show.
That man-and-machine thing
at the end is
I'm still in shock, really.
It's the first time I've cried in my show.
[Wintour] I always admired
his creativity and his brilliance
and his conviction and his fearlessness.
And his shows were simply astonishing.
This is when the fashion shows
really became a piece of theatre.
And really, incredibly exciting.
And that actually had a big influence
on the Met Gala.
[Bowles] Alexander McQueen's genius
was to take fashion and turn it
into performance art.
And that really felt like the final piece
of the puzzle for the modern Met Gala.
-Beautiful.
-Amazing.
Yeah. As Justin Levine described it,
that's an absolute banger.
-[all laugh]
-Would you like to hear anything else?
-It's fabulous.
-Yeah.
It's gonna set a really good emotion,
and a really good mood.
And Anna knows, some of these have
really great personal connection to Karl.
There'll be a lot of people coming in
who will know that.
-So, just
-He loved to waltz.
He loved to waltz.
And he had a nice ballroom to
waltz in, too. But that's another story.
-[Wintour] They really work.
-[Bolton] This one is great in the end.
And this is the
-It's so beautiful.
-canonical and countercultural line.
[chuckles]
-What do you think about the explosionals?
-They're all Wow.
It's like such a surprise,
'cause it's like, wow,
the combination
of masculinity, femininity,
-and here it is.
-I was worried it'd be
too much of a statement, like, too big.
It's fantastic.
In his brilliance, Andrew Bolton
boiled down the exhibition
from 10,000 costumes to 200.
I love that one.
[Harlech] It's very you
with all the necklaces.
[Wintour] I love that dress.
And Michelle's
Yeah, isn't it beautiful, this?
[Wintour] What were you saying?
That's concrete?
-So this is concrete, cubes of concrete.
-[Harlech] He did concrete sequins.
Of course he did. Who else
And it took three years to develop.
The focus of the exhibition
is very much about the work.
And the idea is that
you get to know Karl for the work,
rather than the caricature
that he developed over the years.
You know, he was somebody who anticipated
where fashion was going.
Karl was always about the zeitgeist.
He loved popular culture.
He knew the power of a celebrity
very early on.
And I think he was using celebrities
as a vehicle for his clothing
and for his own aesthetic.
-[Wintour] It's looking really good.
-[Bolton] This looks good, isn't it?
And once we've got all the lighting done
and the greens look amazing.
Karl loved the Met Gala 'cause, you know,
he was the ultimate voyeur.
And, you know, there's no better place
to be a voyeur than the Met Gala.
-[crowd cheering]
-[woman] Rihanna!
[reporter] Welcome to the 2023 Met Gala.
The night we honour the life and legacy
of one of the most influential
and prolific designers in the history
of fashion, Karl Lagerfeld.
The Met Gala has turned into
the ultimate expression of pop culture.
'Cause I don't go to the Academy Awards.
Fashion people, we don't go to the Oscars.
Politicians don't go to the MTV Awards.
There's only one gala that we all go to.
And that's the Met Ball.
[Campbell] Chaos.
But organised chaos. Fun.
So phenomenal.
[Enninful] The Met Gala
is the ultimate viral fashion moment.
A designer having one viral moment
on the red carpet equals 10 shows.
And it just gets bigger
and bigger and bigger.
[Parker] I think it's definitely
intimidating, the carpet now,
because there's just so much attention
and everybody is, in a sense,
competing for the prize, you know?
[Banks] It's a sport.
It should be in the Olympics.
And it's, "How can I top you?"
[Goodman] Fashion is an art.
And it is enormously powerful.
The purpose of the Met Gala
and the Costume Institute
is to support that and to promote it.
Fashion within the halls
of the Metropolitan Museum.
That's the point.
[Wintour] The Met has reached
millions around the world
because, I think people understand
that whatever is happening in fashion
is reflecting our culture, it's reflecting
what's happening in the world.
Fashion is a conversation
and I think that's the joy of the Met.
Chanel, Chanel, Chanel. Gucci, Gucci,
Gucci. Gucci down, Chanel down.
Some people call it high end, low end,
but it's ghetto fabulous.
That's what it is.
Taking that logo was like stealing
the crown jewel.
It was major.
Ralph Lauren gave you one horse.
I gave you a whole herd.
Rappers wanted the whole herd.
Can you imagine doing that
in this time period of social media?
Instagram down, Twitter down,
Facebook down.
I just loved the fact
that she just left the house like that.
TikTok down, Twitch down.
Everything down. [chuckles]
It was the beginning of a phenomenon,
I guess you could say.
Hip-hop music and the way they dressed
changed the world.
[theme music playing]