Did Zoe Saldana look good last night? Of course. The rust-coloured, one arm sequined dress with the neck tie and matching stole fit her beautifully. Her hair was great. The giant purple flower was great. And at any other event, she’d be a contender. At this event, though? When we’ve already featured Ciara and Lupita and Gigi and even Katy Perry…
I just don’t see the 6th gear. I don’t see where the added sauce is to this outfit, the thing that makes it Camp. The thing that makes me laugh, that makes me stop in shock, that makes me WTF, or want to pass out. This is sexy, this is 70s, this is pretty, even,but as we said yesterday, pretty isn’t the goal, at least not the first goal, of Camp Club. What makes this especially a letdown is that Zoe has the potential to really take it there – Gamora, I think, would have taken it there. I’m not saying she should have showed up with green skin and gold-tinted scars to the Met Gala. But my point is that you’ve seen how f-cking dope she looks in that character, which tells you how much further she could have pushed last night and I wonder if we were robbed of the possibility.
Heartbreakingly, same goes for Solange. The Met Gala arrivals felt interminable last night, maybe because there was so much pageantry, it became exhausting having our wigs snatched again and again every time someone new arrived. But I was waiting, I was waiting for Solange because, as you know, she’s been an extraterrestrial showstopper for the last few years in a row – almost as much as Rihanna. In 2015 she tried tokill us as an oyster. In 2016 she was magnificent inyellow, folded pleats.In 2017 she was Duana’s Best Dressedin what was basically a puffer coat with platform oxfords. Last year she wore theaccessory of the night– a celestial durag, challenging the idea of the heavenly body and whose bodies get to be called heavenly. That’s a four year streak of awesome delivered into eyeballs. You understand, then, why she was at the top of the anticipation list. And while this snakeskin romper with matching boots is definitely a mood, it’s more of a Grammys mood, or a VMAs mood, but not quite a Met Gala Camp mood.
Maybe, though, this is Solange’s version of what Rihanna’s doing – taking a Met Gala break, only in person. Maybe Solange was like, I’ll let the rest of you trip all over yourselves going over-the-top, I’ll give you all a chance in a year that would be so easy for me to run the table. But next year, I’m tapping back in. If that’s the case, fine, I can wait.
