The strongest Met Gala 2024 looks did more than add flowers to a formal gown. They translated the event’s “Garden of Time” dress code into images of decay, fragility, fantasy, craftsmanship, and theatrical transformation. Zendaya’s two appearances, Gigi Hadid’s monumental Thom Browne rose garden, Tyla’s sand-covered Balmain look, and Elle Fanning’s glasslike Balmain were among the night’s clearest successes. Doja Cat’s wet T-shirt dress, Chris Hemsworth’s restrained suit, and several otherwise technically polished gowns drew more criticism because their connection to the theme felt less developed or less memorable.
These are editorial judgments, not official awards. The Met Gala has no objective best- and worst-dressed list, and major fashion publications disagreed—sometimes dramatically—about the same outfit. The gallery below weighs theme interpretation, construction, image impact, styling, originality, and the inevitable question of whether the look worked on the museum steps.
What the Met Gala 2024 theme actually meant
The Met Gala took place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 6, 2024. It celebrated the Costume Institute exhibition Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, while the official dress code for guests was The Garden of Time, a reference to J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story.
Those titles are related but not interchangeable. Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion was the museum exhibition; The Garden of Time was the gala’s requested fashion prompt. The exhibition explored fashion through sensory experience and the fragility and ephemerality of garments, with more than 200 works represented in the exhibition and its associated materials. That gave guests several possible routes into the theme: flowers and gardens, the passage of time, decay, sleeping beauty imagery, historical revival, fragile materials, or the idea of clothes being awakened for one more encounter.
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Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth, and Anna Wintour served as co-chairs. The resulting carpet included literal roses and greenery, archival references, fantasy silhouettes, stark minimalism, and looks that seemed to ignore the prompt altogether.
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How this gallery judges “best” and “worst”
Rather than treating one publication’s ranking as definitive, this gallery uses six questions:
- Does the look interpret the theme? A convincing reference can involve nature, time, sleep, fragility, decay, or historical revival—not only printed flowers.
- Is the craftsmanship visible or documented? Couture construction, archival garments, unusual materials, and labor-intensive handwork matter when they contribute to the image.
- Does it create a memorable photograph? Met Gala fashion is experienced on the stairs, where silhouette, movement, and scale are crucial.
- Do the accessories and beauty look belong to the same idea? A strong gown can be undermined by styling that pulls in another direction.
- Does it add something beyond a conventional evening gown? Literalism can work, but generic florals or a familiar sheer-dress formula need a particularly strong execution.
- Is the verdict disputed? When major outlets reach different conclusions, “divisive” is more accurate than “bad.”
Best dressed: the looks that made the theme visible
Zendaya in Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano
Zendaya’s first appearance was one of the evening’s most complete transformations. John Galliano’s custom Maison Margiela Artisanal gown used an aged blue-green and botanical palette, sculptural detail, and an intentionally uncanny finish. It suggested a garden not at its freshest, but after time had worked on it—weathered, theatrical, and slightly supernatural.
The look succeeded because it did not reduce “The Garden of Time” to a bouquet pinned onto a dress. It made decay and historical couture language part of the silhouette. Harper’s Bazaar placed it among the night’s leading looks, and Vogue also highlighted Zendaya’s unusually powerful two-look performance.
Verdict: A high-concept opening image that treated the garden as decayed, theatrical, and otherworldly.
Zendaya in vintage Givenchy haute couture with a Philip Treacy headpiece
Zendaya’s second appearance changed the story completely. She wore vintage Givenchy Spring 1996 haute couture and paired it with a Philip Treacy flower-bouquet headpiece associated with Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2007 collection. Where the first look suggested an aged and uncanny garden, the second delivered a formal floral spectacle.
The power of the pairing was narrative. Zendaya did not simply wear two attractive outfits; she gave the carpet an opening and a closing image. The archival Givenchy reference, the oversized bouquet, and the extreme headpiece made the second entrance feel like a final tableau rather than a change of clothes.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteVerdict: One of the night’s defining images—and proof that archival fashion can make a theme feel deeper rather than merely nostalgic.
Gigi Hadid in Thom Browne
Gigi Hadid’s Thom Browne gown turned the garden into an enormous embroidered rose bed. The old-Hollywood silhouette provided a familiar foundation, but the three-dimensional yellow roses and green leaves pushed the look into monumental territory.
Harper’s Bazaar reported that the gown used more than 2.8 million beads, required approximately 5,000 hours of work, and involved more than 70 people. Glamour emphasized the practical spectacle as assistants helped manage the train on the Met steps. Those details matter: the labor was not invisible background information but part of why the look had such scale.
There is an important dissenting view. WWD included Hadid in a worst-dressed gallery, demonstrating that extraordinary labor does not automatically produce an appealing result. Some viewers may find the gown too literal, too busy, or too difficult to read in motion. Even so, its craftsmanship and immediate legibility make it one of the strongest candidates for this list.
Verdict: A spectacular, labor-intensive interpretation that works best if the viewer values craftsmanship and visual scale over restraint.
Tyla in Balmain
Tyla made the passage of time physical. Her Balmain gown was covered in a sand-textured treatment and accompanied by an hourglass motif, connecting the look directly to the evening’s time imagery. The body-conscious shape made the material feel even more unusual: she appeared less dressed in sand than gradually preserved or buried by it.
The image of Tyla being carried up the stairs became inseparable from the look. That was both a logistical necessity and a gift to the photograph. The hourglass accessory supplied a readable symbol without making the entire outfit dependent on a floral print.
Verdict: One of the most instantly recognizable looks of the night, with a tactile concept and a strong time-based idea.
Greta Lee in Loewe
Greta Lee’s sheer Loewe look offered a quieter route into the theme. Its controlled transparency, surface, and proportion did the work, while her blunt haircut and restrained makeup kept the styling from competing with the garment.
The risk was obvious: a relatively simple silhouette can disappear beside couture trains, enormous headpieces, and sculptural fantasy. Lee avoided that problem by making restraint feel intentional. The look treated fragility as a material quality rather than illustrating a garden literally.
ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, and Glamour all included Lee among their preferred looks, although the appeal depends on appreciating precision over spectacle.
Verdict: A sophisticated argument that minimalism can be radical on a carpet built for excess.
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Elle Fanning looked as if she had stepped out of a glasshouse. Her Balmain gown used layered resin to create a glasslike trompe-l’œil effect and appeared to be supported by sculpted birds. The result translated the “Sleeping Beauties” idea into polished fairy-tale fashion without losing the scale expected at the Met Gala.
The design was literal, but literal does not necessarily mean unimaginative. The birds, transparent effect, and fragile-looking surface gave the gown a coherent visual world. ELLE and Glamour both treated it as a standout, and it was one of the clearer examples of an outfit turning a potentially delicate idea into a strong red-carpet silhouette.
Verdict: A polished fantasy interpretation with a convincing glasshouse effect.
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Taylor Russell in Loewe
Taylor Russell’s Loewe look was sculptural, body-framing, and deliberately unnatural. Its tension came from the contrast between the construction of the garment and the exposed skin around it. Rather than presenting a soft, romantic garden, it made the body look as if it had been enclosed by an architectural or alien growth.
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Verdict: A high-risk, high-reward interpretation that gave the theme a severe and unnatural edge.
Colman Domingo in Willy Chavarria
Colman Domingo broadened the conversation beyond gowns with a dramatic caped look by Willy Chavarria. Its ceremonial silhouette treated menswear as theater. Instead of relying on obvious flowers, Domingo used volume, movement, and presence to engage the fantasy and formality of the prompt.
ELLE described the appearance as a continuation of his strong red-carpet style, and the Associated Press identified Willy Chavarria as the designer. The look is a useful counterpoint to the assumption that men must interpret a garden theme through a floral print or a green suit.
Verdict: A commanding menswear success built on ceremony and silhouette rather than literal decoration.
Other strong contenders
The night produced more defensible favorites than any short ranking can contain. Alia Bhatt in Sabyasachi, Cardi B in Windowsen, Bad Bunny in Maison Margiela Artisanal, Lana Del Rey in Alexander McQueen, Nicole Kidman in Balenciaga, Kylie Jenner in Oscar de la Renta, Venus Williams in Marc Jacobs, Jennie in Alaïa, and Kim Kardashian in Maison Margiela all appeared in full-look galleries or best-dressed roundups.
They do not have the same degree of consensus as the principal selections above. Some are stronger for craftsmanship, some for historical reference, and some for the photograph they created on the steps. In a gallery setting, that distinction is useful: a look can be worth discussing without being an uncontested winner.
Worst dressed—or simply the most divisive?
“Worst dressed” is a harsher label than the evidence usually supports. Several criticized looks had clear concepts or substantial technical work; they failed, for some viewers, because the idea did not become a persuasive image. The following are better understood as the night’s most frequently criticized or divisive appearances.
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Doja Cat in Vetements
Doja Cat appeared in a deliberately wet-looking white Vetements T-shirt dress. The provocation was unmistakable: a plain T-shirt became the entire red-carpet statement, while the wet effect suggested exposure, impermanence, or a garment caught in an unexpected moment.
Critics who disliked it argued that the look read more like a social-media stunt than a developed response to “The Garden of Time.” It had none of the visible handwork or layered references of the night’s couture-heavy standouts. A more sympathetic reading sees it as a conceptual counterpoint to the pressure to produce an elaborate floral costume. The disagreement is the point: the idea was clear, but whether it was enough for the Met Gala remains unsettled.
Verdict: A memorable provocation, but one that many viewers found underdeveloped beside the evening’s richer fashion narratives.
Chris Hemsworth in Tom Ford
Chris Hemsworth wore an understated beige Tom Ford suit. It was polished and conventionally attractive, but that was also the problem. On a carpet built around historical fashion, fragility, nature, and theatrical transformation, the outfit could read as a safe formalwear choice rather than a response to the dress code.
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Verdict: Clean and wearable, but too conventional for a theme that rewarded commitment.
Jennifer Lopez in Schiaparelli
Jennifer Lopez wore a custom Schiaparelli gown with a sheer, heavily embellished effect. The garment had technical polish and delivered the expected high-glamour presence, yet critics who placed it among the weaker looks felt that the styling repeated a familiar sheer red-carpet formula.
The criticism was not that the gown lacked effort. It was that the effort did not produce a sufficiently distinctive image for this particular theme. Against the night’s archival references, tactile materials, and fantasy silhouettes, the look could feel like conventional celebrity glamour with a garden-adjacent finish.
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Verdict: Impressive in construction but less inventive in overall effect than the strongest looks.
Kim Kardashian in Maison Margiela Artisanal
Kim Kardashian’s corseted Maison Margiela Artisanal look was divisive because several ideas competed for attention: extreme waist shaping, metallic floral construction, and historical references. Some critics admired the couture drama; others found the silhouette overly familiar or uncomfortable-looking.
The outfit illustrates why craftsmanship alone cannot settle a red-carpet verdict. The corsetry and metalwork created a strong object, but the body, pose, and garment could appear to be fighting for control of the image. Viewers who prioritize historical and couture detail may place it among the night’s best; those who prioritize ease, novelty, or proportion may reach the opposite conclusion.
Verdict: A technically ambitious look whose dramatic elements did not convince everyone as a unified image.
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Lana Del Rey’s Alexander McQueen look drew on the house’s archival language through branches, a veil-like structure, and hoof-shaped footwear. Its concept was strongly connected to the garden and to an enchanted, transformed figure.
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The execution split opinion. Harper’s Bazaar included the look among its best-dressed selections, while a separate worst-dressed critique identified it as a miss. Supporters saw haunting theatricality; detractors saw an awkward structure and footwear that overwhelmed the overall image. It is difficult to call the look thematically irrelevant, which is why “divisive” is the more accurate description.
Verdict: A committed concept with an intentionally strange result—either a dark fairy-tale success or an overworked silhouette, depending on what the viewer values.
Michelle Yeoh in Balenciaga
Michelle Yeoh’s Balenciaga ensemble was fashion-led and sculptural, but some critics considered it too heavy or visually disconnected from the garden and sleeping-beauty references. The dark construction gave it presence, yet the look did not communicate its relationship to the prompt as quickly as the night’s more legible successes.
Verdict: Serious and sculptural, but less immediately coherent as a “Garden of Time” image.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the same look can appear on both lists
Gigi Hadid’s Thom Browne gown is the clearest example. One editorial perspective sees millions of beads, thousands of hours of work, a recognizable rose garden, and a dramatic train. Another sees excessive literalism and a silhouette that may be more impressive as a production feat than as clothing.
That disagreement comes from different standards:
| If you value… | You may favor… |
|---|---|
| Craftsmanship and labor | Gigi Hadid’s Thom Browne |
| Historical fashion references | Zendaya’s archival Givenchy and Lana Del Rey’s McQueen |
| Conceptual minimalism | Doja Cat’s Vetements or Greta Lee’s Loewe |
| Immediate photographic impact | Tyla, Zendaya, or Elle Fanning |
| Wearability and conventional polish | More restrained tailoring, such as Chris Hemsworth’s Tom Ford |
| Strangeness and risk | Taylor Russell’s Loewe or Colman Domingo’s Willy Chavarria |
The best criticism explains the standard being applied. A gown can be too literal but beautifully made; a minimalist look can be conceptually sharp but feel underpowered; a historically important reference can still produce an awkward photograph. Calling a look a “miss” without identifying the failure—theme, proportion, styling, novelty, or image—does not tell the reader much.
Gallery and image-use notes
For the complete attendee list and designer captions, Vogue’s full red-carpet gallery is the most useful discovery index. ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Vanity Fair, and WWD provide valuable comparative rankings and criticism. Their lists should be read alongside one another rather than treated as a single authoritative scoreboard.
Photographs from the carpet are generally credited to Getty Images or other photographic agencies. Editorial coverage and image credit do not automatically grant republication rights. Verify licensing, permissions, and any required attribution separately before adding red-carpet images to this gallery.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Met Gala 2024 dress code?
The official dress code was “The Garden of Time,” inspired by J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story. It was distinct from the Costume Institute exhibition title, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”
Who was the best dressed at the Met Gala 2024?
There was no official winner, but Zendaya, Taylor Russell, Gigi Hadid, Tyla, Greta Lee, and Elle Fanning were among the most defensible editorial choices. Zendaya’s two separate looks were especially influential because they created a complete visual narrative.
Why was Doja Cat’s Met Gala look criticized?
Doja Cat wore a deliberately wet-looking white Vetements T-shirt dress. Critics felt it was closer to a provocation or social-media stunt than a developed interpretation of the dress code, although supporters viewed its minimalism as a conceptual counterpoint to the night’s elaborate couture.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesWhat exhibition did the 2024 Met Gala celebrate?
The gala celebrated the Costume Institute exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” which explored fashion through sensory experience and the fragility and ephemerality of garments.
The Bottom Line
The most successful Met Gala 2024 looks made the theme readable without stopping at generic florals. Zendaya supplied the evening’s strongest two-part story; Tyla turned time into a physical material; Gigi Hadid made handwork into spectacle; and Greta Lee and Taylor Russell showed that the garden could be fragile, severe, or abstract. The most criticized outfits were not necessarily poorly made—they were the looks that, for many viewers, produced a less distinctive image or a less convincing connection to the prompt.
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