Zendaya wore a blue layered gown, reminiscent of a peacock. Kim Kardashian wore a floral corset with an absurdly cinched waist. Lana Del Ray had branches in her headdress.
But as they walked the Met Gala red carpet in their finery, there was no way for these A-listers to ignore the hundreds of protestors, shouting “Rafah! Gaza!” within earshot of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Palestinian group, organized the march, which involved hundreds of people marched up Madison Avenue. At around 6 p.m., they stood in front of the Mark and Carlyle hotels on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where many celebrities were getting ready. In the hours that followed, as decked-out stars took questions from reporters before entering the museum, you couldn’t escape the drone of chanting in the background.
An army of NYPD officers kept pro-Palestinian protestors off the red carpet, but they arguably succeeded in crashing the Met Gala anyway. Clad in keffiyehs that served as a striking contrast to the glitterati’s finery, their loud chants made the fashion world’s silence even more deafening.
A history of protest
Fashion designers aren’t usually shy about using their work to speak out about what is happening in the world. “There’s the politics on your phone and the politics on your street,” Virgil Abloh, the Off-White and Louis Vuitton designer told Vogue in 2020, shortly before he passed away. “And, yeah, there’s the politics of your clothes.”
In 2015, Kerby Jean-Raymond used his Pyer Moss show to draw attention to racism in America, sending models down the runway in jackets graffitied with the word “breathe.” It was a direct reference to the police brutality against Eric Garner, who died in a chokehold.
In 2016, designers used New York Fashion Week to express their support for Hillary Clinton. Anna Wintour, the organizer of the Met Gala, threw a fundraiser and invited Tory Burch, Prabal Gurung, Diane von Furstenberg, and Joseph Altuzarra to create T-shirts supporting Clinton’s campaign. In 2018, Jeremy Scott finished off his fashion show by walking the runway wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with, “Tell Your Senator No on Kavanaugh.” At his own show, Christian Siriano wore a shirt that read “I’m Voting for Cynthia” to support Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial race.
Met Galas of the past have been a place for political statements with stars like writer-actor Lena Waithe wearing a rainbow cape by Carolina Herrera in 2018, and representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s infamous “Tax the Rich” gown from 2021.
Why so silent?
Today, we’re seeing the largest anti-war protests since the Vietnam War, so it wasn’t surprising that the protestors showed up at the Met Gala. Pro-Palestinian protests have exploded across the country in recent weeks.
The war in Gaza is entering its seventh month. As Israel continues its military operation, the death toll now hovers around 35,000. The day of the Met Gala, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a ceasefire deal. Meanwhile, without access to food and clean water, the United Nations says that Northern Gaza is in a state of “full-blown famine.”
This time, however, the fashion world is keeping silent. Perhaps it’s because there’s a real cost to speaking out against the war. We’ve seen this play out on college campuses. More than 2,500 students have been arrested for protesting against the war, and many are facing expulsion. University presidents who have not taken a strong enough stance against anti-Semitism have been compelled to resign.
Meanwhile, celebrities who have taking a pro-Palestinian stance have been strongly repudiated. In late October, the model Gigi Hadid wrote in an Instagram story about her heartbreak for the “Palestinian struggle and life under occupation.” This drew an immediate response from the State of Israel’s Instagram account saying: “…are you just fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes?” It ended with a rather ominous: “We see you.”
As the death toll continues to rise in Gaza, the fashion world has yet to enter the fray and take a stand against the war. Last night, the world watched a bizarre split screen. On one side, there were millionaires stepping out in their finery, and on the other, there were those speaking out for Gazans dying of starvation. If this doesn’t nudge designers to use their platform to speak out, nothing will.