Although she hadn’t attended a Met since 2015’s “China: Through the Looking Glass,” Evangelista had previously graced the carpet 11 times over the years, making last night her 12th Met Gala. She attended her first in 1993, “Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style,” wearing a black ankle-length dress with woven straps by Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé, which came from her own closet. “I did the campaigns and I would choose a bunch of dresses after the show, and they would give them to me,” Evangelista recalls. “So this was out of my closet. It was a different experience back then. I’m dressed like me.”
Since then, the chameleonic model has donned a variety of looks for fashion’s big night. For “Haute Couture” in 1995, she wore an ’80s-esque black lace strapless Chanel dress and a string of pearls, while for 2013’s “Punk: Chaos to Couture,” she opted for a gray cloud of tulle from Marchesa. For 2015 appearance, Evangelista got ahead of the now-raging coquette trend, wearing a red Moschino dress with an oversized black bow draped over one shoulder.
While Evangelista has rocked a host of looks across the style spectrum over many Met Galas, last night’s might be her favorite yet. “I think both of these women get it right, and I just love their taste so much,” she says of Holstein and Khouri. But most importantly: “It feels like me.”
Below, Linda Evangelista took us behind the scenes as she got ready for the 2024 Met Gala.
Emmanuel Sanchez