Isabelle Huppert honored the finesse of French haute couture at the Met Gala 2024, held this Monday, May 6, 2024, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As in previous years, the event brought together a star-studded array of guests for a unique evening of fashion, with the dress code: “The Garden of Time.” For this new edition, the event celebrates the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” For the occasion, French actress Isabelle Huppert called on Balenciaga and its artistic director, Demna, to whom she is friend and muse, to imagine a silhouette inspired by the theme. The Oscar nominee and the designer have collaborated for several years, with Huppert explaining: “Since I’ve had the pleasure of being dressed by him, I find that there’s always this mix that touches on classicism and at the same time, there’s an interpretation. It’s as if he’s constantly bringing together the past and the present with great intelligence and sparkle”.
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Huppert has often spoken of her fashion heritage as the great-great-granddaughter of Marthe Bertrand, who in 1895 founded the famous maison of Callot Sœurs, with her three sisters, Marie, Régina and Joséphine. She appeared on the Met Gala 2024 red carpet in a reinterpretation of a 1930s Callot Sœurs wedding dress with a champagne-colored silk satin petal train. An important piece for Isabelle Huppert, who explained her particularly strong connection with this year’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”: “I think that of all the participants, I’m probably the one with the most obvious and, above all, the most personal connection. Since I’ll be wearing a dress revisited by Demna, obviously for Balenciaga, but a dress that was created by my great-grandmothers.”
The top-and-skirt ensemble featured an embroidered lace handkerchief on the wrist, a funnel-neck top (the original neckline was round) and a four-meter-long train, of which, the actress confided: “That’s the big surprise, there’s a train, in fact, it becomes a completely crazy dress, but it’s not a surprise. It’s Demna’s creative madness.” And while the Callot Sœurs are less well-known than some 1930s maisons, it left its mark on fashion history, contributing to the beginnings of haute couture. Huppert revived this sleeping beauty at the Met Gala 2024.