Monday marked the biggest night in fashion of 2024 - The Met Gala. You do not need to be a fashionista to have seen it make headlines from Zendya’s outfit change to Doja Cat hitting the questionable white and green carpet in a completely see-through, wet-look dress.
While some of the celebs might have missed the mark on the dress code, the evening’s sponsors certainly did not. The theme and exhibit - Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion - used technology (AI, CGI, X-rays) to breathe new life into archival garments that are too fragile to be worn again. Technology has always played a massive role in fashion, but with the likes of AI being such a hot topic, the theme still managed to feel current. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it made sense that a tech company, TikTok, was the lead sponsor. FYI, they were appointed prior to the potential ban in the US, but there was still some controversy around TikTok sponsoring the event.
Vogue exclusively streamed the event from their own digital channels, including TikTok. There was some TV coverage for those in the US, but Vogue's live stream was the only place to watch outside of the US. What’s interesting is Instagram used to be the place to go to access the first glimpses of the outfits, but this year all eyes were (literally) on TikTok. Disclaimer, I do not have the numbers to back this up, but it’s my hunch.
There were also smaller partnerships surrounding the night. If you were keen like me and watched the live stream of the red carpet on TikTok, you will have seen ad breaks appear in the live feed. I viewed the event via British Vogue’s TikTok, which was ‘presented by’ ebay. I thought this was a really clever partnership between Vogue and ebay, with both parties equally benefiting. For Vogue, the partnership signalled that they were tuned into this year's theme, all about celebrating slow, circular fashion and for ebay, partnering with such a big and influential fashion power house proved they can be high-end and deliver on luxury. The sponsored live stream was part of a wider, long-term partnership between Vogue and ebay. Ebay is currently running a home-page takeover on British Vogue, but there has also been a lot of evergreen content published on site over the last 12 months. Given shopping mindfully is becoming more prevalent, this partnership is likely here to stay.
Over the coming weeks, there is going to be a lot of continued chatter about the night and plenty of memes that will live on for a long time. Brands will also be jumping on the bandwagon - I’ve already seen Gymshark Women have fun with their take on some of the looks from the night here.
P.s. my favourite looks from the night were seen on Mona Patel, Taylor Russell, Mindy and Tyla.
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