A new pillar of red carpet fashion, structural couture is transforming stars into statues.
At the Met Gala, celebrities were rendered practically immobile by the suffocating rigidity of the haute looks, and they often needed a hand — or in the case of Cardi B or Gigi Hadid multiple handlers — to pick up their train.
And it’s not just the annual fashion fete, where we’ve come to expect peacocking celebs to outdo one another. Zendaya chose a futuristic — yet impractical — archival Thierry Mugler space-age suit for the “Dune: Part Two” premiere last month that she said almost caused her to faint. Most recently, at the “Furiosa” premieres, actress Anya Taylor-Joy donned an armor-like custom Balmain mini dress as well as archival Paco Rabanne haute couture, which featured golden spikes protruding from the outfit and accompanying headpiece.
It’s all because any old glam frock just won’t cut it these days.
“People want celebrity to feel like celebrity,” stylist Timothy Chernyaev, who has built a following for his fashion commentary online, told The Post.
“I don’t even think that crosses people’s mind that any of these clothes would be available to purchase, people don’t see the red carpet that way,” he continued.
Rather, it’s a performance art or “a display of some kind,” he noted, where designers aren’t concerned about “what’s going to work in real life.”
That’s true, especially at the Met Gala, where actress Taylor Russell attended in a bespoke Loewe corset made to look like wood. Greta Lee, dressed in the same label, wore a white lace gown with a towering, sheer neckline that veiled her face, realizing she couldn’t eat. Tyla, in a custom Balmain gown made of sand, required attendants to carry her up the museum’s stairs, while a wobbly Kim Kardashian girdled in a metal lace Maison Margiela number trailed behind.
“There’s something going on about the cultural power and interest in really surreal fashion in clothing that plays with notions of what clothing is meant to be and what its relationship is meant to be with the body,” Emma McClendon, an assistant professor of fashion studies at St. John’s University, told The Post.
“Right now, there’s an interest in unconventional materials, unconventional textures, the sort of the coalescing of fashion and technology around these textiles.”
While the statuesque garments boast designers’ masterful handiwork, the rise in avant-garde apparel can be, in part, attributed to the need for a “viral moment,” McClendon said, which has “completely changed the way we think about clothing and ourselves and identity.”
There has historically been a fascination with caricature couture, from the sky-high powdered bouffants of the 18th century to the 19th century voluminous crinolines and cinched corsets that exaggerated the ratio between hips and waist.
But now, at events like the Met Gala — which is intentionally “designed to create” buzz online, she added — everyone is competing for the internet’s attention.
“Style has become very promotional,” Chernyaev said. “People are now very aware of the press — the relationship between the red carpet, the press and how those images and how that gets distributed to social media.”
Just look at the press tour for “Barbie,” when Margot Robbie recreated the Mattel doll’s iconic outfits for each saccharine pink carpet.
Oftentimes, these bold outfit statements come with a “tense battle between the body and the garment,” McClendon said.
Take Zendaya’s robot moment — an ensemble she said made her feel lightheaded and nearly caused her to pass out. At the 2024 Grammys, Dua Lipa said she was unable to sit in the crowd in her Schiaparelli gown and Tyla had to destroy her Met Gala dress just to move around all night. A much more practical Taylor-Joy admitted that she brought a change of clothes after showing off her spiked “Furiosa” frock.
Chernyaev said film premieres and events like the Met Gala are, more or less, a photoshoot, so wondering how your favorite celeb will sit down for dinner, or put a fork up to their mouth, no less, is moot.
“Who cares?” he said. “That’s not a consideration for any of these people.”
