RSVIP: Fashion Sings at Yves Saint Laurent-Sponsored Met Opera Gala
Rossini never wrote love music more lovely than the score of "Le Comte Ory" (1828), a comic opera which debuted at The Metropolitan Opera in New York on Thursday. But Yves Saint Laurent creative director Stefano Pilati was responsible for the cavalcade of fashion on the gala's jet-black arrivals carpet.The set: the icy chill of a tented quarter-mile hallway leading to the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center on March 24.
The story onstage at the Met: love, identity confusion, and some cross-dressing in the 19th century. Met director Bartlett Sher has described "Le Comte Ory" as "a place where love is dangerous. People get hurt."
"That can be very funny and very painful," quips Sher.
Let the media coverage begin!
On the runway at fashion shows which, oddly enough, take place in nearly the same location during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the clothes can appear almost lifeless draped on coat hanger-thin, personality-free young models. But on the black carpet at the gala, stars dressed by YSL injected the fashion with their own quirky personality and style.
Emmy Rossum, above, wore a billowing jewel-tone green dress that resembled harem pants. Stones set in a brightly colored belt around her waist recalled the colors of Jardin Majorelle, the late designer Yves Saint Laurent's palace garden in Marrakesh.
But chunky, translucent stones encircling Rossum's wrist were borrowed from a famous friend. "I texted Ivanka [Trump] and wrote, 'Let me borrow.' And she sent a selection to my hotel." Rossum not only starred in the screen version of "Phantom of the Opera," she also studied and sang at the Metropolitan Opera as a child. "I know all the side doors and exits," she mentioned to Luxist.
While Claudia Schiffer looked regal in a black column dress, it was Patti Smith who wowed us with the transition from her punky youth to an elegance befitting Lincoln Center. Her black cape was a borrow, but she owned it.
"I'm very partial to velvet," Smith told Luxist. "So they were very nice to let me have this beautiful cape. Some velvet is not true velvet, but this is true silk velvet."
A curvy Olivia Munn ("Iron Man 2") was sucked into a sleeveless velvety black dress and long gloves with a gold bow at the base of her spine. "I took a plane last night and got in at 3:00 a.m.," she said. "I went by, and they dressed me. It was a nice fit, something classic, but the pretty bow in the back makes it special."
Julianna Margulies, meanwhile, had on a tall metal choker reminiscent of the rings worn by Padaung women on the Thai-Burma border. "YSL helped me get everything, even the wedge shoes," she said. "Which are not bad to walk in."
And the necklace? "Like having a little friend," she offered demurely.
The long black YSL number Claire Danes wore was decorated with gold beads. Her hunky husband, Hugh Dancy, with a new beard, pulled her in close for photos.
Last to arrive: the tiny Olsen sisters, who stepped out of their car wearing giant sunglasses, which they later removed. Mary-Kate also had on a sparkly sleeveless floor-length YSL coat and a blouse with puffy three-quarter-length sleeves. A braid of her blond hair snaked onto her left shoulder.
Blame it on the icy breeze or her diminutive stature, but Ashley Olsen wore an anachronistic green YSL stole that inadvertently recalled Jane Jetson.
Okay, perhaps just one false note.
