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Last night was the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Annual Costume Institute Gala, and this year it was co-chaired by George Clooney, Julia Robert, Giorgio Armani and Anna Wintour. A head-exploding collection of the biggest stars in the world, the annual gala rivals the Academy Awards for star power: Tom and Kate, Posh and Becks, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Tom and Giselle, both Olson twins, designers, Venus WIlliams and so on. Now why are we bothering to write about this? Because they all came out for “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” a superhero themed costume show that has temporarily turned the Met into a superhero outpost. We’ll have our own review of the show in the next post, but suffice to say that most people wore sparkly stuff to at least keep a little of the superhero theme going.
Reporters who were allowed in picked up on the superhero theme:

Vera Wang, yet another designer, with the model Karolina Kurkova, pointed out that she hadn’t worn a dress with superhero shoulder pads, or even a bra, “but maybe I would have if I was 10 years younger.”

Then Gisele Bündchen (in Versace), passed by, saying, “I want to take that Wonder Woman costume down and wear it right now, but it would probably be too revealing.” Her escort, Tom Brady (in Tom Ford), quickly commented, “I want her to wear the Wonder Woman outfit.”

It went on like this for an hour or so until the final crush of late arrivals. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was followed by Donald and Melania Trump, Karl Lagerfeld in a shiny silver-sequined blazer (“I’m shinier than the heroes,” he said), then Marc Jacobs, Janet Jackson, Donatella Versace and Donna Karan.

And Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes came through, looking perfect. “I’ve always just loved comic books,” Mr. Cruise said. “I dig those characters.”


For our money, Only Wintour, in a specially made outfit by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, really upheld the theme of the evening. Marvel and DC both supported the show, and Alex Ross art was on display everywhere, but it’s unknown if any of our kind were on hand to revel in the star-studded evening of glamour and spandex.

A few more pics in the jump.

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A lot of old time superhero actors were at the show, including Lynda Carter.
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Venus Williams
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Posh and Becks

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Even this bozo was there.

1 COMMENT

  1. According to the Daily News, the designers invite the stars to the Costume Institute Gala. I believe they also design the fashion each personality wears. Perhaps designing fashion based on the theme is a bit gauche, since a designer could be seen as either trying to upstage the exhibition, or being compared unfavorably to something on exhibit.

    Is that Anna Wintour in the sparkly white dress? She looks deliciously EVIL.

  2. Tom Brady is too handsome and next to gisele looks much more handsome

    that must be terrible that Tom always opaque to their shaky

    but you can expect from the gisele as whores?

  3. Tom Brady is too handsome and next to gisele looks much more handsome

    that must be terrible that Tom always opaque to their shaky

    but you can expect from the gisele as whores?

  4. “Wam! Bam! Pow! Superheros at the MET.”

    Yep. They said it. We should make this redundant crime a crime of redundancy, to anyone in the media, who is a reporter, who reports using this overused catch line, in their headline, that goes at the top, bottom, or anywhere in between, in their article. It’s redundant. It was redundant in the early 80’s. It’s redundant now, and I don’t think it’s going to stop being redundant. Someone send out an APB to these redundant reporter/media types. Don’t be redundant with the POW’s and the BLAM’s and the like, in your redundant headlines. :)

  5. It’s sad when “clothes” at a fashion show “inspired by the art of comics books” fetches quite a bit more cash than the original artwork of said inspiration.

  6. I also like how in the video they have someone talking about how this will bring more children to the met, and then they cut to a costume with a mettle boobles bra with little rings that go around the nipples.

  7. I think it’s chipping away at them, but only little by little. I remember a conversation with someone who had just seen X3. They thought it was great, but kept calling Wolverine and Storm “Claw Man and Weather Girl.” Mainstream doesn’t always mean respected. Anyway, I don’t think we should ever worry about being “mainstream” as long as we can make a living doing what we love, and there are people who love what we do. We know we rock, and that’s what’s important.

  8. Rob, I don’t think it’s sad. Obviously, if the clothes warrant it, and are made of expensive fabrics and such, they would be quite costly.

    It’s nice that such high fashion recognizes the comic book art for inspiration. As long as the comic book medium does not die and people are getting paid for their work, you can’t say that it’s a bad thing for others to follow suit into bringing their ideas into their work, be it high or low brow.

  9. “you can’t say that it’s a bad thing for others to follow suit into bringing their ideas into their work, be it high or low brow.”

    Hmm, that brings up another point. Is this high or low brow art? I’m going to go with high brow. What do you think?