Met Gala 2021 red carpet: The most fabulous celebrity looks

The Met Gala 2021 red carpet is finally back after a long hiatus, and it is bigger and better than ever. Celebrities including JLo, tennis champions Emma Raducanu and Serena Williams, Zoe Kravitz, Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner, Kristen Stewart, Rihanna and ascended the Metropolitan Museum steps in New York in their most beautiful gowns.

Here’s everything you’ve missed.

Met Gala 2021 theme

This year, the event exceptionally happened in September, but it will be back to its normal schedule of the first Monday in May in 2022.

The Met Gala 2021 red carpet theme was American Independence, to tie in with the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition for the Costume Institute: In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.

The exhibition explores ‘a modern vocabulary of American style emphasising the expressive qualities of dress and deeper associations with issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion’ and ‘will present narratives that explore the development of American fashion as they relate to the complex and layered histories of those spaces’.

Met Gala 2021 red carpet

As usual, celebrities’ interpretation of the theme was highly subjective. Some embraced a 1920s Prohibition-Era look (hi Sienna, JLo, Rita Ora and Margaret Qualley), while others just went for colourful statement gowns (Carey Mulligan, Chiara, Emily Ratajkowski, Amanda Gorman).

The monochrome brigade was also out in full force. Gigi Hadid, Cynthia Erivo, Claire Danes and Cara Delevingne all opted for head-to-toe white, though Cara’s Dior bustier added a dose of sass with its ‘Peg The Patriarchy’ slogan.

Meanwhile, Hailey Bieber, Maisie Williams, Kaia Gerber, Sharon Stone and Rihanna all donned black gowns, proving the timeless hue will never go out of style.

If you’re going to hit the Met Gala, you might as well make a statement, so it’s no surprise sheer and revealing cut-outs featured aplenty. Taraji P. Henson, Laura Harrier and Teyana Taylor looked particularly fierce.

Without further ado, here are the best looks from the soirée.