Heading out but hate chilly evenings? See how Penélope Cruz’s gown was given a trans-seasonal update with a sleek coat.
Photo: Getty
There were at least 14 after-parties succeeding this year’s Met Gala, the most photographed being FKA twigs’s event at The Standard Hotel, Cardi B’s at Silencio, Burberry’s at Caviar Kaspia in The Mark Hotel, and Shayne Oliver and Jean Paul Gaultier’s joint club night at 333 E 60th Street. According to one colleague who travels to the States, these after-parties provide the backdrop to “the one night of the year that New York loses its ego and lets loose”.
That precise feeling of release can be surveyed across all the outfit changes that tend to take place post-Met: hemlines are brought upwards, fabrics turn transparent and stuffy ball gowns are replaced with boudoir-ish sets – the whole thing functioning as a necessary catharsis after the pressures of attending one of the most eyeballed events on the planet. But then someone like Penélope Cruz walks in – wearing not a minidress but a fishtail Chanel gown – and you are reminded of why the Met Gala exists in the first place: as an annual shrine to beauty and fashion and dreams.
The 50-year-old actor – who earlier that evening posed on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s steps in hoop-skirted haute couture that took no less than 500 hours to complete – was making a fleeting visit to Stella McCartney and Casamigos’s bash at Casa Cruz. Old Hollywood hair and glittering chandelier earrings unscathed, Cruz looked like she was perhaps attending a different function – somewhere in Positano or Paris in the ’50s – where the edicts of glamour were first established.
Giving her gown a fresh update, Cruz layered up for her post-Met Gala outing in a long coat bedazzled with delicate embellishment along the sleeves. Instead of wearing it over the shoulders, the icon gave us a masterclass in elevated shrobing, dropping the number down to her elbows to reveal the elegant asymmetrical neckline of her Chanel gown. It doesn’t get more effortless than this.
Originally published in Vogue.co.uk
