Met Gala shows where power lies in fashion – which makes Zendaya’s choice intriguing

The Met Gala and its red carpet is an annual X-ray of where power lies in fashion and in the adjacent worlds of celebrity, Hollywood and music.

It shows us who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down. It is a heat map showing us the connections between culture and entertainment, between the establishment and new money, between the tech billionaires who have the deep pockets to fund nights like these and the designers whose dresses their wives want to wear. These are the new corridors of soft power, and the Met Gala draws back the veil on the alliances, feuds and fallings-out.

This is a night of sublime dresses and serious money. The Superbowl of fashion-as-entertainment raised almost £17m last year for New York’s Metropolitan Museum. For context, the Met’s second most lucrative fundraiser earned about £4.5m.

Talking point no 1: the unexpected star of the night was John Galliano. Zendaya, who as both co-chair of the Gala and hottest celebrity of the moment had all eyes on her choice of gown, chose to wear two dresses by the designer disgraced in 2010.

Her arrival look, an iridescent peacock blue corsetted, mermaid-skirt dress by Maison Margiela, the label for which Galliano currently designs, was followed by a vast, inky vintage couture Givenchy gown from 1996, during Galliano’s tenure at the house.

Kim Kardashian also chose a silver dress by Galliano, a sheath of metallic lace with such extreme corsetting that her impossibly narrow waist made immediate headlines. Kardashian understands the power of fashion in contemporary culture better than anyone.

The silhouette primarily leveraged the formidable power of her body to put herself in the headlines, but the choice of Galliano was no accident. The joint Kardashian-Zendaya endorsement of a designer who has made a quiet return from his wilderness period this year, with a documentary by Kevin Macdonald and a hit show at Paris haute couture, lends credence to rumours that Galliano could soon be headed back to a major job in fashion, perhaps a return to Givenchy, where the designer post is vacant.

Galliano’s high profile also hints at the resilience of the behind-the-scenes power of Anna Wintour, a staunch advocate for the British designer, who may have influenced the decision making of the Zendaya and Kardashian camps.

Other characters in the power play come and go, but Wintour remains queen. The triumphant red carpet turns for Wintour’s favourite designer might alleviate any disappointment in the night’s high profile no-shows by Taylor Swift and Rihanna.

The red carpet has become a new kind of press briefing. Model and activist Adwoa Aboah announced her pregnancy with a look which exposed her bump between a puffball skirt and a ruffled bolero.

Tom Ford appeared to make a silent dig at the new designer of his label, which he sold last year, by choosing not to wear Tom Ford menswear on the red carpet. Instead, his crimson velvet jacket was by Saint Laurent. Amazon was the main sponsor of the night, and it was notable that Jeff Bezos and his fiancee Lauren Sánchez ditched the cowboy hats and sheer dresses of recent public appearances in favour of classic Upper East Side elegance: black tie for Bezos, a stately Oscar de la Renta gown for Sanchez.

The theme of the night was described variously as Garden of Time and Sleeping Beauty. As a bellwether for fashion it is interesting that while both titles seem to lend themselves to bucolic prettiness, the red carpet leaned toward the dark and twisted. In parallel with the spotlight on Galliano, there was a high profile for his contemporary Alexander McQueen.

Newly arrived McQueen designer Seán McGirr dressed Lana Del Rey in a dress and spiked headpiece shrouded in tulle which was a homage to Lee McQueen’s 2006 Widows of Culloden collection, while Kendall Jenner wore two archival McQueen looks, from 1997 and 1999.

Jenner’s choice of two vintage pieces reflected the high status of vintage fashion at the Met Gala. A few years ago, star power was all about having a new designer create a brand new look for you. But having the clout and know-how to access significant pieces from fashion’s most highly prized archives is now the ultimate red carpet flex.