TAILORED TO PERFECTION

The eagerly awaited Met Gala did not disappoint, with some of the world's biggest stars turning out in fine fashion to honour the dapper theme

- LAURA CRAIK

Dubbed the fashion Oscars, the style Olympics and "the most glamorous night of the year", the annual Met Gala - the Costume Institute Benefit, held at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art - is not an event for the faint-hearted. Rather than aspiring to be best dressed, many guests are simply content to avoid any fashion faux pas, and never more so than this year, with the theme - Superfine: Tailoring Black Style - a potential sartorial and cultural minefield.

The White Lotus co-stars Aimee Lou Wood and Patrick Schwarzenegger; and (above left) Colman Domingo in Valentino

As always, the evening's theme mirrored that of the museum's summer exhibition, which is this year devoted to men's tailoring for the first time.

Billed as "a cultural and historical examination of black style over 300 years through the concept of dandyism", the idea was partly inspired by the late, legendary Andre Leon Talley, the first black person to serve as creative director of Vogue, lauded for his flamboyant, dandyish style as the right-hand man of editor-in-chief Dame Anna Wintour.

DANDY DRESSING

He would certainly have approved of Sing Sing star Colman Domingo, one of this year's co-chairs, who dressed most accurately in Andre's image, in a floor-length cobalt-blue pleated Valentino cape - which, when removed, revealed a dapper black and white Valentino suit. He would also have appreciated the craftsmanship of co-chair Pharrell Williams's Louis Vuitton blazer, which featured 100,000 pearls and took 980 hours to make.