THE INTERNET WAS TOO EAGER TO CRITIQUE GIGI HADID'S MET GALA DRESS — HERE'S WHY IT ACTUALLY TICKED ALL THE BOXES

The internet — in both its immediacy and democracy — has enabled each of us to become a critic. We have a platform to voice opinion in a way like never before, which can be a force for change and a force for good. But it can also leave us vulnerable, acting too soon and, in the case of (yes, somewhat trivial but truly delicious) thoughts on the Met Gala outfits, offering opinion prematurely, ahead of not only doing our own homework, but before allowing famous faces and their teams a chance to explain a look's foundations.

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Gigi Hadid was amongst the first of the bigger names to arrive on Monday night. In a gleaming gold Miu Miu gown, the newly minted 30-year-old looked every inch the supermodel. On first glance, however, she might not have looked on theme but you could recognise swiftly a gentle nod to a vintage feel. Fashion fans and would-be critics were fast out of the starting gates to moan that Hadid hadn't bothered nodding to the theme in any regard whatsoever.

It's understandable why the internet united in a exalting groan that Hadid, a white presenting model of unmeasurable influence, fame and wealth, had chosen to overlook the theme. Last night was the first time where Black fashion influence had been placed front and centre of a Met Gala dress code, in response to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's soon opening exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, which is in part inspired by Monica Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Hadid, who has the fashion world at her fingertips could and should have worked with Black creatives to create a look that was a sensitive tribute to those that have shaped the fashion industry with less of the mainstream acclaim afforded to their white peers. Right?

Right! Because that's what she did. After the first images of her reaching the blue carpet had percolated, she was fast to speak to interviewers to explain the thought process behind the dress, which she had worked on not only with Miuccia Prada and the Miu Miu team but her close friend Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, a Black stylist known not only for her exacting eye but her willingness to speak out against racism and injustice in the industry. The reference, when explained by Hadid, was clear and considered, sensitive but celebratory, too.

'It is an homage to a Zelda Wynn Valdes, who was a fashion designer,' Hadid explained when talking to Emma Chamberlain. 'She took her technique and the skill in men's tailoring and applied that to the female form. I hope that she would love this.'

Wynn Valdes passed away in 2001 after a decades-long career in fashion that began in her uncle's tailoring shop where she learned the trade that would later see her designing dresses from her Manhattan boutiques for the likes of Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald and Mae West. In fact, Hadid's dress is an almost like-for-like interpretation of a gown worn by Baker - the first Black actress to star in a major film - in 1951, where the same glistening texture catches the light in fabric that meets at the waist and in a halterneck. On first glance a simply beautiful dress that only becomes richer in design once the concept and context is understood.

The immediate nature of the falsely awarded critiques thrown at Hadid speaks on behalf of the blame culture that fashion often finds itself front and centre of — often duly so. Mistakes are made when it comes to points on cultural appropriation or insensitivity. But it's hard to imagine that these blunders are ever outright active decisions, but the ignorance is hardly justifiable either. This, however, was a case of neither. And Hadid and Karefa-Johnson deserved more than that initial response.

Anyone who has ever bothered to learn anything worth knowing knows that things often deserve further reading and understanding to fully comprehend. It's a shame that in the case of this clever, well-executed, well-thought-out collaboratively created gown this thought process wasn't applied from the outset. In future, let's not only have a little more faith that fashion forces are at work for good but to have a little more patience in finding out more, too.

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2025-05-06T15:56:12Z