The first Monday of May every year is possibly the most anticipated day for fashion enthusiasts. Whether or not you are interested in it, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) Gala has this contagious energy that manages to suck you right in. It’s not just another star-studded event, but one which somehow places us in a real-life dream via our screens. Everything beautiful and thought provoking that we can possibly imagine comes to life.
This year’s theme was “Camp: Notes on Fashion”, inspired by critical essayist and cultural analyst Susan Sontag’s iconic essay “Notes on Camp”, published in 1964. Sontag, who died in 2004, had noted in her essay that camp is just about sensibility but more so a particular preserve of the LGBT community. She further expressed that it was white gay men, “who constitute themselves as aristocrats of taste”.
The theme does make for an ideal concept in the current climate, as it is one where fashion is constantly trying to navigate inclusivity but still somehow manage to cleverly maintain a hierarchy. However, at the same time, Camp in a sense should come natural as the whole idea is to be a tastemaker. Sontag had expressed, “The pure examples of Camp are unintentional”. But at such a star-studded event with everyone placing their artistic ability on steroids to earn the favour of followers and onlookers, it is difficult to cut through the noise to determine who is Camp and who isn’t.
So how does one do Camp in order to seem like the furthest thing from intentional and how do we go about appreciating an aesthetic that may be new to us? This is why this year’s theme was s possibly one of the best, never mind that celebrities are basically Camp throughout their careers.
The following were my favourites at this year’s MET Gala:
Lupita Nyong’o for sure. Lupita at any given time celebrates her blackness. This in every essence is unintentional. She is a tastemaker and she celebrates her own aesthetic steadily, not just at the MET Gala but on every single red carpet. For some, her look may have come across exaggerated, but this is because we live in a whitewashed society that scrutinizes every black beauty standard and aesthetic. Mind your Euro-centric beauty politics.
Kim Kardashian – Most people said she looked basic and how she would look any other day. But she basically won the red carpet. Kim is the embodiment of Camp. She perfected her own aesthetic whether it was through surgery or a highly regimented diet. The whole idea of Camp was to look as if you weren’t being so intentional and that was Kim on most days. Barely clothed.
Cardi B- Cardi B is naturally extra. Perhaps not always on the fashion side of things but definitely in the way she acts and speaks. I find her visual aesthetic to be one that can be easily manipulated to suit the setting. This in turn would make anything she wears basically Camp because it simply isn’t just about the clothes but the way one celebrates him or herself.
For now, it’s back to living in my PJs but Camp is a gentle reminder to just be yourself.
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