Why the A-list turned up their noses at this year’s Met Gala

It used to be a who’s who of the celebrity stratosphere. The kind of event where Madonna could shed a monastic cloak and unleash a surprise rendition of Like a Prayer; where Rihanna could dress as the Pope, and Katy Perry as a chandelier, while the rest of us looked on, convinced we had reached the apotheosis of haute couture, and perhaps even human endeavour.

But this year, amid a number of conspicuous absences, the biggest date in the fashion calendar has fallen prey to the ugliest of whispers: has the Met Gala essentially become as urgently cool and relevant as that part of the Tory Party conference when the “stars” do karaoke?

The glittering annual New York event was last night notable for the big names who gave it a miss. Taylor Swift skipped the gala for the eighth year running, undoubtedly exhausted after composing music’s equivalent of War and Peace – her recently released 31-track Tortured Poets Department album. Fellow pop superstar Beyoncé also missed it for the eighth time.

Katy Perry was absent too, and so was her chandelier. Rihanna reportedly called in sick with the flu. The actor Timothée Chalamet, a vision in white at 2021’s event, was said by his agent to be too busy filming to attend.

Other stars who stayed away included the actor couple Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, singer Justin Bieber and his wife Hailey Baldwin, singer Billie Eilish and actress Anne Hathaway. Harry Styles missed it for the fifth year running.

The gamut of excuses offered up on behalf of the talent should serve as an inspiration to anyone seeking a way out of their next work drinks. The theme was Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, and the dress code “the garden of time.” Unfortunately, it was time that seemed to be lacking for a few would-be guests.

For Swift it was reportedly a scheduling issue. With her Eras Tour resuming in Paris on Thursday, it would naturally have been impossible for her to appear in New York three days earlier. Other reports suggested she was busy preparing for the tour. This reason was “completely valid”, insisted Harper’s Bazaar. As, presumably, were her reasons for missing every single Met Gala since 2016.

Styles was also overseas, while Perry was at pains to clarify that despite the circulation of a photo of her on the red carpet, this was in fact AI-generated and she wasn’t there as she “had to work.” And in fairness, who among us can say we haven’t “had to work” during certain social events.

Lively has a baby who is “still young”, according to Cosmopolitan, generously gifting her this excuse for non-attendance. Bieber meanwhile has been “facing some difficulties lately” and “hasn’t been feeling like his usual self”, a source told the magazine.

Margot Robbie was another for whom air travel didn’t appear to be an option. The actress was reportedly absent because she is shooting a project on the West Coast.

While this string of A-listers had mysteriously succumbed to insurmountable scheduling and geographical problems, the Metropolitan Museum of Art event was attended by several Kardashians, a smattering of nepo-babies, Eddie Redmayne pairing a dress with some sensible office shoes – and Lana Del Rey, whose literal interpretation of the theme saw her come as the overgrown bush in your garden no amount of pruning can tame.

“It’s become like Disneyland,” says one fashion source on the question of why so many now stay away. “It’s just costume, it’s not fashion, it’s not elevated in any way.” The event has degenerated into a “merry-go-round of social media-fuelled hype,” he suggests.

Others point to the eye-watering costs brands had to stump up for the gala, which raised money for the Met’s Costume Institute: a single ticket was priced at $75,000, while a table cost $750,000. The overblown nature of this giant fancy dress party may conceivably no longer sit right with image-conscious celebrities.

As the successive no-shows of certain superstars suggests, though, the nature of the gala’s guestlist has been shifting for several years.

It has recently been attended by a number of influencers, which some felt diluted the exclusive feel of an event that was formerly the preserve of the ultra famous. In 2022, various popular TikTokkers made the cut, but the trend started as far back as 2015, when blogger Chiara Ferragni graced the red carpet.

Has the changing guest list put off some bigger stars?

One fashion insider puts it bluntly: “When I go to the zoo, I want to see an elephant, a lion and a tiger,” she says. “But the Met Gala is now full of meerkats.”