The opinions expressed in The Lawrentian are those of the students, faculty and community members who wrote them. The Lawrentian does not endorse any opinions piece except for the staff editorial, which represents a majority of the editorial board. The Lawrentian welcomes everyone to submit their own opinions. For the full editorial policy and parameters for submitting articles, please refer to the about section.
This past Met Gala was just as highly anticipated as it is every year. As the most viewed and star-studded fashion event of the year, it’s practically a holiday for those who follow fashion. The event is organized by and completely under the control of former Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who chooses the theme and approves every guest. The event is a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which always has an accompanying gallery defined by the event’s theme.
The event has a strict black-tie dress code, but more importantly, guests are highly encouraged to dress in costumes that reflect the theme. It is a huge opportunity for both big-name fashion labels and smaller designers to advertise their lines and flex their creative abilities in fashion design. This year was no different, but upon hearing that the theme was an ode to the late Karl Lagerfeld, creative director of Chanel from 1983 until his death in 2019, I anticipated controversy on the horizon.
Karl Lagerfeld has always been a controversial figure in the fashion world because of his frequent insensitive remarks and apathetic actions, and because he was an accomplished designer even before taking over Chanel in 1983. He designed for French fashion house Chloé in the 1960s, and even collaborated with Fendi on several occasions.
At the time when Lagerfeld was offered his position designing for Chanel, the brand was on a steep decline. The world assumed that Chanel was a dead label. Lagerfeld accepted the position anyway and revolutionized the Chanel name, turning it into the major fashion icon that it is today. He successfully combined modern sensibilities with Coco Chanel’s original intention of making complete, ready-to-wear looks. Lagerfeld made the interlocking C’s logo popular. He also used the Chanel label to combine high fashion with the functionality necessary for a more mobile clientele.
Lagerfeld was also a highly accomplished fashion illustrator; his ability to not only design looks but also elegantly portray them in illustrations—not just sketches—was unique in the fashion industry. Lagerfeld’s aesthetic, as was embodied at this year’s Met Gala, is characterized by his use of tweed, pearls and graphic elements, with a high attention to detail.
In addition to the brilliant and highly praised contributions of Lagerfeld to his industry, he was infamous for his blatant fatphobia, classism, xenophobia and general tone-deafness. He frequently made comments implying that fashion is not meant for fat people. He opposed gay marriage, the #MeToo movement, sweatpants and the color pink.
Lagerfeld was not delicate in his comments, inviting controversy over every topic. He criticized Germany’s acceptance of Syrian refugees, claiming that refugees were “the worst enemies” of Jews. He called Princess Diana “stupid” and Andy Warhol “repulsive.” At his fall 2010 ready-to-wear show, Lagerfeld decorated the runway with a giant “iceberg” sculpture intended as a comment on global warming. This sculpture was made “from 240 tons of snow and ice reportedly sheared off a glacier in Sweden.” The piece took six days and 15 tractor-trailer trucks to deliver intact to the runway.
There were, as is to be expected, protests against Karl Lagerfeld subtly visible on the Met Gala carpet. Several celebrities, including Viola Davis, Ashley Graham and Precious Lee, wore pink. Lagerfeld frequently repeated the mantra “think pink, but don’t wear it” and expressed a hatred for the color, so its appearance at the Met Gala was a lovely little protest of his name. Lizzo, a woman famed partly for her embodiment of the idea of fatness as beauty, wore Lagerfeld’s ideal aesthetic, a black dress dripping with pearls, then posed on Instagram eating McDonald’s fries—something for which Lagerfeld frequently expressed disgust.
Media coverage of the Met Gala is definitively extensive every year, and this year was no different. But the very small amount of coverage given to Karl Lagerfeld’s darker side was a bit of a disappointment for me. In today’s culture of vehemently acknowledging injustice wherever it may be, the media allowed the Met Gala to be Karl-Lagerfeld themed without much protest.
Lagerfeld was a close personal friend of Anna Wintour, and his death in 2019 shook the fashion world, so the fact that he was memorialized for the theme was not necessarily a surprise. However, there are other fashion giants worthy of commemorating who are not hatred-spewing. For example, Virginie Viard, the current creative director of Chanel who worked closely with Lagerfeld, is still alive and as worthy of commemoration.
I look forward to the Met Gala every year as a fashion enthusiast myself, and I have to say this year was generally boring and gave me an icky feeling for being made to admire this awful man’s beautiful artistic influence. The feeling would have been less icky, perhaps, if more was done by artists to bring less subtle attention to the awfulness that was Karl Lagerfeld as a person. With stunts in the past like Cara Delevingne’s “Peg the Patriarchy” top at the 2021 Met Gala and other famous fashionable protests, the 2023 looks felt overall a bit too respectful. I acknowledge that there is value in creating an art event that highlights the brilliant artistic eye of an icon who has died, but art is meant to be critiqued; sometimes art is the critique. There was no sense of self-awareness at this year’s Gala. Especially in times like these, when a controversial figure is honored on a very public stage, I expect there to be critique of that figure.