Where the Met Gala Really Begins
By now, half the world has registered an opinion on Kylie Jenner’s nipple-forward Venus de Milo homage or the clipper ship perched on Madonna’s head at this year’s Met Gala. But few have seen the T.S.A.-level machinations behind the deployment of the overdressed guests from their staging areas to the museum’s steps. The Mark Hotel, on Seventy-seventh Street and Madison, was a center of the hubbub, with a hundred and fifty-three rooms and suites booked out to various glam squads.
“Everything is timed!” Maria Wittorp, the hotel’s head concierge, said, with the haste of an auctioneer, standing in the lobby, as blazer-wearing staffers whipped by. “We only have someone come down when their van is ready.” Wittorp, who has worked the event six times, channelled the gala’s dress code (“Fashion Is Art”) by wearing a pair of bug-eye glasses. “They’re Alain Mikli,” she said. “Elton John has worn his designs.” She raced off, gripping an orange clipboard.
The room buzzed.
“My radio is out. Wait, I think it’s my earpiece.”
“Murray, you’re breaking up.”
“This is my first one,” a Mark sales executive named Cher Liu said. She thumbed through a thick packet with the names and photos of every guest, as if cramming for a final. A woman tried to come down the central stairs. “You’re going to have to wait!” a manager told her. “No one through the lobby!” Another woman, in a short skirt and leopard-print heels, slipped by him, holding an empty Martini glass.
Wittorp scurried over to a curtained side entrance. The drapes opened, and in walked Anna Wintour in turquoise-feathered Chanel. She beelined out the street door, where her van awaited. Departures had officially started.
The lobby’s elevator doors opened and a woman with a giant white saucer on her head and a matching floor-length coat, embellished with red splotches that evoked stab wounds, slowly exited. It was Naomi Osaka. “You guys gotta move back,” a security guard shouted to a pack of photographers in the room. Osaka stood by a reception desk, apparently early for her driver.
The elevator opened again. Liu gripped her packet. Shuffling noises were heard, and then a pointy white gown popped into the lobby. Its wearer was the tech entrepreneur Yu-Chi Lyra Kuo (trickle-down evidence of the gala’s unspoken Silicon Valley subtheme). Kuo showed off her ice-queen garb and noticed a friend in the corner. “Sam! Hi!” she said. The singer Sam Smith, in a black cape dress, stood still as an aide held a portable fan up to their head, which supported a large black feather.
Sprinting through the scene, someone yelled, “I need the lady! I need the lady!”
Elevator doors opened: Venus Williams, in a crystal collar necklace that Ruth Bader Ginsburg might have enjoyed. She dragged a long black train across the marble lobby. (“Our floors are top-tier clean,” a concierge with braces on her teeth said.)
“Do you guys have truffle fries?”
“Could you give me two more keys to our room, under ‘Swarovski’?”
The K-pop star Ahn Hyo-seop waited by the desk, a helper in a surgical mask prodding at his face with a makeup brush. A service door swung open behind Ahn, almost hitting his striped Valentino jacket. The helper jumped to action: now the hair above Ahn’s right ear was out of place.
“Have you seen a tripod? It was leaning right there.”
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?”
Doors opened: Alexander Wang. “Should I go first?” he asked. “No,” someone on his team said. He ended up waiting for the Russian model Irina Shayk, who soon appeared holding a quivering small dog.
Elevator opened: Maude Apatow stepped out. “It’s the girl from ‘Euphoria’!” a staffer said, embarrassed that he didn’t know her name. “I had a list for this!” Next came Chase Infiniti, wearing a colorful trompe-l’oeil Thom Browne dress (another Venus de Milo tribute). Liu earnestly flipped through her packet.
The queue for vans was growing. Someone spurted hair spray on Tate McRae’s long locks. The actress Tessa Thompson explained her blue fingers: “It’s latex!” Joe Burrow, an N.F.L. quarterback, stood by the stairs in a navy Bode suit with bedazzled lapels, kicking his feet from side to side. “Can I have my phone real quick?” he politely asked an aide.
Finally, a lull. It was time for the last departure: Cardi B, who was behind schedule. “We should all clap for her,” a staffer said.
The elevator floor lights clicked downward. 5. 4. 3. 2. The doors opened. The car was empty. Groans all around. Photographers put down their cameras.
The lights blinked again. 4. 3. 2. The big reveal: a cluster of black umbrellas, which quickly opened.
“That’s seven years of bad luck!” a disappointed spectator yelled. Shielded by her team, Cardi B shuffled out to the street, a blob of black nylon. The umbrellas were folded, and the van sped off to drive the four blocks to the Met. ♦