My favorite thing to daydream about is what my life would be like if I were rich. I’d absolutely wear diamonds everywhere, even to the DMV. My house would have a room dedicated to Britney Spears dance parties. And I’d 100 percent, without a doubt, greet people by saying, “Hi, my name is Chris, and I’m rich.“
Which is apparently what Kylie Jenner did at the 2019 Met Gala last month. Well, not exactly. In a new interview with Sports Illustrated, Alex Rodriguez, who sat at Jenner’s table during the soiree, says a topic of conversation that night was the beauty mogul talking about “how rich she is.”
“We had a great table,” Rodriguez told the magazine about his Met Gala experience. “We had Kylie [Jenner] and Kendall [Jenner]. Kylie was talking about Instagram and her lipstick, and how rich she is.”
To be clear, Jenner probably didn’t say the words “I’m rich,” but imagine if she did. On the one hand, eye roll, but on the other: goals. If Renata Klein is teaching us anything on Big Little Lies this season, it’s that we shouldn’t hide our opulence: We should lean into it whenever we can. For me, who has zero dollars, that means strutting down the street listening to “Glamorous” by Fergie and pretending I’m Kylie Jenner. For Kylie Jenner, it means…well, being Kylie Jenner.
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In March 2019, Forbes named Jenner the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, a title that caused some debate online. “I didn’t expect anything. I did not foresee the future,” Jenner told Forbes upon receiving the honor. “But [the recognition] feels really good. That’s a nice pat on the back.”
Self-made or not, I’m not judging Jenner if she did brag a little bit about her money at the Met Gala. Hell, I’d do the same if I were her. In fact, I’d do the same if I just randomly found $5 in my pocket.
Disney is taking its 1994 classic The Lion King and updating it into a computer-animated musical that’s dropping this summer. Messing with a beloved film is risky, but we’ve felt good about this one ever since news emerged that Beyoncé would be voicing Nala. Now, it’s clear that she’s really taking her role to heart: At the Wearable Art Gala hosted by her mother Tina Lawson in Santa Monica this weekend, Bey channeled her character in the most impressive way.
Queen Bey showed up to the event in a glistening gold Georges Hobeika-designed bodysuit that had a lion’s face proudly sewn on the front. Because she never does anything halfway, she added feathers for the lion’s mane, tons of sequins, and a stunning draped cape. Of course, her hair and make-up were styled to go with the regal look.
A few photos she posted on Instagram (keep swiping through!) also show the adorable outfit and headdress that her mini-meBlue Ivy chose for the occasion. In a video clip Bey posted, you can even see Blue Ivy singing along to “The Circle of Life,” showing that pretty much the entire family is getting into Beyoncé’s part in the new film.
The Wearable Art Gala is an event put together by Where Art Can Occur (WACO), an organization that Lawson and her husband started a few years ago. The gala is in its third year, and the 2019 theme was “A Journey to the Pride Lands”—which means Bey pretty much nailed it. She was joined at the celebration by former Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.
The film is slated to come out on July 19, 25 years after the original was released. In addition to Beyoncé, the cast is incredible: Donald Glover is playing Simba, and James Earl Jones is reprising his role as Mufasa. We seriously can’t wait to hear what Glover and Bey do with the movie’s signature song, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”
Every year the Met Gala brings the worlds of Hollywood and fashion together in spectacular fashion with the stars, designers, and glam squads all bringing their A-games to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This year’s theme of “Fashion: Notes on Camp” certainly delivered with over-the-top creations and performance art (thanks, Lady Gaga!) on the pink carpet.
Diane von Furstenberg arrived dressed as the Statue of Liberty, with her own face on her gown. It was camp, but also appropriate given that both are iconic New York women. But there was actually a deeper meaning to DVF’s choice. The designer and philanthropist has helped to raise $100 million for the new Statue of Liberty museum, which opens on May 16.
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, which was created in 1982 to raise funds to restore the Statue, recruited DVF to their board to help bring in the money needed for the massive project. DVF was hesitant to join the organization’s board at first. But the moment she decided it was a role she had to take on was when Stephen Briganti, the president of the foundation, underlined a passage from her book, The Woman I Wanted to Be. “My mother was a survivor of concentration camps for 13 months in 1944,” von Furstenberg said. “I was born after and she wrote me a note, which I included in my book. It said, ‘God saved me so that I can give you life. By giving you life, you gave me my life back. You are my torch of freedom.’ Stephen underlined that and said, see your mother said you are the torch of freedom, you have to do this.”
DVF was so successful in her role that the Foundation’s vice president and chief advancement officer, Richard Flood, called her the “godmother of Lady Liberty” during a press event this week. The designer said that she isn’t typically good at fundraising, but the Statue of Liberty “was an easy sell…somehow when you talk about it, everyone has a story, everyone has someone they want to honor.”
In addition to fundraising, DVF connected the foundation with with Apple to bring the experience to people who don’t have the opportunity to visit in person. “One day I’m sitting next to [Apple’s] Tim Cook and I start to mention the Statue of Liberty and he had never been,” DVF explained at the press gathering. “So I arranged for him to go and he was very much in awe. Then I said to him, ‘I really would like people to have an Apple experience.'” And thus, a great idea was born.
In conjunction with the opening of the new Statue of Liberty Museum, they are launching an augmented reality (AR) app, along with a podcast mini series. “It’s pretty amazing,” von Furstenberg said. “With this app, everybody in the world with an Apple phone or iPad will have access to the museum, the history. The goal was to give this experience, the opening of this museum, to a billion people. So it will be the biggest opening of a museum ever.”
A look at the new augmented reality app that gives users a unique look at the Statue of Liberty.
Apple
The app is packed with cool features like a torch panorama where you can experience the view of the island and New York City from the vantage point of Lady Liberty’s torch from sunrise to sunset. (Actual visitors haven’t been able to do this IRL sine 1916.) Users can also explore the statue itself, as well as a look inside the iron tower structure created by Gustav Eiffel. A historical time-lapse function allows you to see the evolution of the Manhattan skyline over the past 200 years. It’s packed with so much incredible historical knowledge and packaged with the most modern technology available—a pretty incredible combo. (Download it here.)
No red carpet is as hotly anticipated as the one at the Met Gala, especially given that this year’s “Camp” theme is guaranteed to turn out some truly unforgettable looks. The annual Costume Institute Benefit—a.k.a. the Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala—is such a big deal for the fashion-obsessed it’s earned itself nicknames like “the East Coast Oscars” and “Fashion Prom.” But for those of us as equally excitable about celebrity hair and makeup, today is the unofficial anniversary for major celebrity makeovers.
Exhibit A: 2017’s red carpet, birthplace of Taylor Swift’s platinum hair debut and punk alter ego. Exhibit B: Any of these Met Gala beauty moments from last year. Exhibit C: This year’s Met Gala 2019 red carpet. Go ahead and scroll through every look you won’t want to miss—and be sure to check back. We’ll be updating this gallery as more photos and product details emerge throughout the night.
Though it may have seemed as though Blake Lively flew solo at this year’s Met Gala, her family—husband Ryan Reynolds and daughters James and Ines—were with her in spirit. More specifically, she carried them with her: Lively had a Judith Leiber clutch custom-made with the Reynolds family crest.
If you look closely, you’ll see that Lively’s rhinestone-embellished handbag has intricate scenes depicted on either side. On the front, it’s classic “sacred heart” iconography behind a veiled woman, in keeping with the theme of this year’s Costume Institute exhibit, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination”; on the other, there’s a riff on a medieval family crest, which, at the very center of a scroll, reads “Reynolds.”
Here’s a close-up of both sides of Lively’s clutch.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Judith Leiber
PHOTO: Courtesy of Judith Leiber
The Reynolds crest is in the shape of a cross, and on each of the four points there’s a jewel with a letter in the middle: B, R, J, and I—the first initials of each member of the Reynolds-Lively family. Does this count as James and Ines’s first Met Gala appearance?
PHOTO: Kevin Mazur/MG18/Getty Images
The clutch paired perfectly with the rest of Lively’s breathtaking ensemble: She wore a crimson Versace gown with a gold, richly embroidered bodice, bejeweled straps, and an extra-long train—all of which took more than 600 hours to create by hand. Besides the meaningful handbag, she accessorized with a golden, halo-esque headpiece, Christian Louboutin pumps, bright green earrings, and a stack of gold bracelets.
PHOTO: Kevin Mazur/MG18
Reynolds attended the 2017 Met Gala in human, rather than bedazzled accessory form. Inside the event last year, he shared a sweet love note to his wife via the popular Humans of New York Instagram account: “She always responds with empathy. She meets anger with empathy. She meets hate with empathy. She’ll take the time to imagine what happened to a person when they were five or six years old. And she’s made me a more empathetic person.”
Honestly, there’s nothing like the Met Gala to make you want to live that #luxurybitch lifestyle. The jewels, the gowns, the hair accessories alone—name one place you can wear a crown in real life? You can’t, and that’s just unfair. But the night does bring out one perk for the world watching celebrities, designers, and artists in their gala apparel, and that’s the under-$20 makeup that stands up to one of the most high-maintenance nights in existence. We can watch, we can learn, we can pick our faves, and we can head to Amazon before Blake Lively’s lipstick is gone.
