Even the Empire State Building got a rhapsody-in-blue glow-up for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. It was confirmation, if any were needed, that of all the gala evenings in what may be the most gala-stuffed city in the country (be they fund-raisers or award shows or draft days, take your pick), Friday night’s festivities at Madison Square Garden qualified as among the most high-profile galas of all.
Hello, Met Gala. They saw you and borrowed the playbook. The Costume Institute fund-raiser may finally have a rival for the title Party of the Year. Or maybe Prom of the Year?
After all, this party, like that party, claimed what seemed to be a highly calculated and cross-pollinated power guest list, with attendees from the worlds of sports, Hollywood, music, comedy and society arriving one after another in their black Sprinter vans. Here, Karlie Kloss and Josh Kushner; there, Hugh Grant! Here, assorted members of the Kansas City Chiefs; there, Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid! Here, Sombr; there, George Stephanopoulos. Here, Nikki Glaser; there Dakota Johnson. You get the idea. The magic is in the mix, and the mix doesn’t get much more heady than this.
This party, like that party, may be taking place behind closed doors with a ban on phones and social media, but it has an equally rabid audience of outside oglers just waiting to live vicariously and comment on who went with whom and who was wearing what.
But this party, unlike that party, eschewed the exaggerated costume dramas that adorn the guests of the Met. Rumors that top hats and opera gloves were going to be de rigueur turned out happily not to be true, and rather than tempting fate and meme culture with a theme teetering on the edge between elegant and absurd (in the Met’s case, more than occasionally tipping over it, and not in a good way), the black-tie dress code of the Kelce-Swift nuptials seemed to have freed the attendees from trying to push the boundaries of taste, allowing them to just define fancy as they saw fit.
Ed Sheeran in his sky blue suit and white T-shirt aside, most of the men wore classic tuxedos. Even the rapper MGK went with a mostly traditional penguin suit (albeit with a steel wallet chain hanging from his belt loops). As for the women, the predominant colors seemed to be pink, gold and black; the most common materials lace and lamé, with a bit of sparkle on top.
Swift, who has not only attended the Met Gala but also served as a co-host in 2016, clearly was taking notes.
Indeed, despite shutting down a chunk of Midtown on a busy New York weekend, she and Kelce have thus far emerged largely unscathed from their very public display of wealth and just-for-the-select-few fabulousness, while the same could not be said of May’s Met. Widely criticized for its tone-deaf display of ostentatiousness, that benefit has started to seem less a joyful celebration for a good cause than an ends-justify-the-means, morally empty extravaganza.
This, on the other hand, is more like a supersized (if pretend-secret) live-action version of a Disney fairy tale. The fact that Swift and Kelce donated $26 million to various charities probably helped.
