In her observation of Las Vegas wedding parties in the 1967 essay “Marrying Absurd,” Joan Didion observed: “Las Vegas is the most extreme and allegorical of American settlements, bizarre and beautiful in its venality and in its devotion to immediate gratification.” By those metrics it qualifies as unfailingly camp.
No wonder Sin City became a key locus of inspiration for Jeremy Scott and Gwen Stefani when coming up with the latter’s outfit for the Met Gala 2019, the ribbon-cutting extravaganza celebrating the opening of “Camp: Notes on Fashion” at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Artifice and exaggeration is Vegas’s USP.
Read more: Met Gala 2019 Dresses: Every Look Live From The Red Carpet
All the more prescient: Stefani has been spending a lot of time in Las Vegas of late as she completes her headlining residency, “Gwen Stefani: Just A Girl”, at Zappos Theater in the Strip’s Planet Hollywood casino. Even better, Scott had had a hand in outfitting her in a custom-made Moschino rhinestone-smothered, gold-fringed, rose-embellished cowgirl outfit and matching cowboy boots for the show’s closing look. Coming up with something fabulous for the Met, then, wasn’t going to be difficult.
“The look I designed for Gwen is a mix of all the kinds of camp iconography that she and I love. There is some showgirl Vegas feathery fluff, some sparkly razzle dazzle rhinestones, and some old-school French boudoir bombshell action going on,” Scott told Vogue, several days before the event. “Gwen will be dripping in jewels like she just cleaned out Cartier, Van Cleef and Harry Winston in one fell swoop!”
In stark contrast to the monochrome Maison Martin Margiela look Stefani wore at her last Met Gala appearance, in 2013, which celebrated the “Punk: Chaos To Couture” exhibition, she dazzled in a rhinestone-choked bustier, fishnets and a dramatic floor-sweeping marabou and Swarovski crystal cape.
Scott was on her arm as her date as she told red carpet reporters she was enjoying a rare night out without her children. “We’ve been talking about Blake being here all day and fantasising about it and that will never happen! Ever!” she said, referring to her partner of several years, Blake Shelton, the country music singer and her co-panellist on The Voice. Meanwhile the consensus from social media was clear: if this is what a six-year Met Gala hiatus looks like, roll on 2025.