- What does gilded glamor white tie mean to me?
Well, gilded glamor to me means gold.
[upbeat music]
I don't really generally think
about dresses until I think about a person.
- It's so exciting.
- Because it really is about the person for me.
[Ariana laughing]
I wanna bring their beauty to life,
and their personality alive, and encapsulate it together.
[upbeat music]
There might be a nuance, or a note perhaps,
but in general, it's really about the person,
and I just really think about them, and I muse about them,
and I try to bring something to life through that.
I mean, for me, gold has such a big iconic factor,
especially at Moschino.
I mean, the iconic gold Moschino letters are such an emblem
of brand, the archive, and the heritage.
There's something about gold that is
inherently very Moschino, and something very Italian.
There's something about it that's a very Italian glamor.
I love that it evokes a lot of emotion.
[lively music]
Those who know my career also know
famously I had a whole gold show.
The all gold show was my fourth show,
and being a new designer in Paris, an American upstart,
there was a lot of anticipation, opinions.
I think what they saw was not what they expected
from the work that I had done before,
and that show became a very divisive moment.
The upper echelon establishment of fashion panned it,
and the idea of the color gold at that moment
in the height of minimalism was seen as tacky and garish.
It was hideous and heinous.
There was a lot of people that said
I should never have a show again.
[upbeat music]
And it's all kind of funny,
because it comes down to one color, and it was gold.
[upbeat music]
When I first heard the theme, I was actually really excited,
because I had just completed my last Moschino show,
and it was all about gilded gold,
so it just seemed like very befitting.
[upbeat music]
I was totally inspired by all the things you would find
in an old moneyed mansion, thinking about the furniture,
the flourishes, the kinds of details.
So I was already working on all these gold trims,
and these different embroideries
for how to translate what you might see in metal
as the edge of a very curvy dresser
from early 1900s or the late 1800s,
and tried to translate that into an actual dress,
and into clothes, and all these kinds of things
that are around this kind of time period.
So for me, it was actually like it was already in this mood,
so it kind of seemed very befitting.
So when I'm dressing people for the Met, and thinking
about not only the vision of the theme, but I have to think
about their own idiosyncracies,
and the things that they like, and how they dress,
their different body shapes,
and their different personalities,
and things that they want to show or not show,
or things that they've done before, or haven't done before.
There's all these other elements that you put into this,
which is so different than a collection.
So I think about them, and I want to have an idea from them
if there's a mood they want to portray as well.
There's always my vision of them,
but there's also figuring out their own vision of themself.
With Ariana, I had been dressing her for the last year,
especially more so as her run for the Oscars came closer
and closer, and I just fell in love with her,
her outspoken nature about the LGBTQ community,
and her role in the community as a queer person,
and that really responds and resonates for me.
So when we spoke about the dress,
she had told me she wanted to wear something more exciting
than what she's been wearing lately,
and that she was kind of like, "I want to go really bold,
and do something more wild, and do something more daring,"
'cause she felt like she had maybe done
a little bit more prim and proper
as the Oscars were getting closer.
And so she and I took that idea, and then I came up
with this gown, thinking of it all as embellished
to high heavens, sequins, and the gold bullion embroidery,
and the cutout on the chest with a little tulle train,
just to have that nod to the bustle aspect
of the gilded age silhouette.
I never wanna try to like, dampen someone's enthusiasm
from being daring.
I think that that's always exciting, and especially
on a red carpet as bold and big as the Met Gala.
As a celebrity, she can be a megaphone to the world
about a way of dressing, a different way of dressing,
a different way of looking,
and so that part is really exciting.
So I wanted to take her challenge,
and rise to the occasion, and give her something daring.
[upbeat music]
[indistinct chatter]
- It's the drawing, like,
I'm gonna stop talking.
[both laughing]
Let's do the Met!
I'm so excited.
- With this gown, I also wanted to think
about the full final image of her,
so of course, thought about the gloves,
completely embroidered, and then I thought,
"How do we take the embroidery,
and kind of extend it, and kind of shape her?"
And then I decided to try to do this kind
of earring version of the embroideries.
- Yeah.
- [Jeremy] But the idea will be that there will be
these earrings that kind of reflect the same shape
of all the flourishes, and kind of extend
the whole look as well as on the gloves.
That's great.
All the railroads in the United States are mine!
- They're mine. [all laughing]
♪ Someday I'll wish upon a star ♪
♪ And wake up where the clouds are far behind me ♪
♪ Where troubles melt like lemon drops ♪
♪ Away above the chimney tops ♪
♪ That's where you'll ♪
Oh, hello.
There you are.
♪ Find me ♪
I think sometimes you're really asked to wear
a design house, right?
And sometimes the design house wears you,
and I don't, that's never really been my approach,
because I don't think I can serve
a garment in that way.
Like, I have to really feel myself in it,
and feel a part of it.
And I think Jeremy, he walks the walk,
and talks the talk, and that is a part of his legacy.
- I generally feel calm in these events,
pre-show, pre-Met Gala.
Obviously, there's a lot of work that goes into it,
and that's a lot of stress.
You're balancing so many things, 'cause beyond the Met,
I still have different collections I'm designing,
different things that are still in motion,
and then this very, very important
exciting moment that I want to get just perfect,
not only for myself, but for all my guests.
- I think it's time for me to put my look on, yeah?
It's time.
[compelling music]
- I think when you're vibrating at that level,
as a very LA way to talk about it,
it just feels pure, and genuine, and honest, and authentic,
and so I can't go wrong at that point.
- I don't fit the mold, so when I walked in,
and we had this great fitting,
and I saw this gown, and I put it on,
it was a reaffirmation of being seen
for the things I have to offer,
and being seen by a fellow artist,
'cause Jeremy is a consummate artist,
the definition of the word, in my opinion.
[lively music] [people cheering]