The Met Gala is often called the biggest night in fashion, but there were some notable absences this year. Gala mainstays like Zendaya and Bella Hadid, as well as figures who have attended in the past, like the mayor of New York City, all abstained from the event.
But plenty of major brands and celebrities were in attendance, including “Heated Rivalry” star Hudson Williams, Cher, Anne Hathaway, Ciara and Russell Wilson. And data from Dash Social, provided to Glossy, showed a significant increase in pre-show buzz on social media, with 5.3 billion impressions for the event over the past four weeks.
Here are five big takeaways from the evening.
Chanel dominated
The Met Gala’s red carpet was full of high-end designers. Dolce & Gabbana dressed Kris Jenner, Anne Hathaway wore Michael Kors, and Troye Sivan wore Prada. According to Dash Social, Dior generated the most engagements of the night, with over 18 million, followed by designers such as Louis Vuitton and Valentino.
But Chanel has had one of the best showings of the night. Several high-profile attendees, like hosts Nicole Kidman and Anna Wintour, along with guests Margot Robbie, Gracie Abrams, Lily-Rose Depp and Jennie from Blackpink, all wore Chanel.
It’s a testament to Matthieu Blazy’s acclaimed creative direction of Chanel — Blazy took over as creative director in April of 2025, and the brand has quickly become one of the most coveted in high fashion.
EBay on display
Multiple designers and guests shouted out eBay in their red carpet interviews. EBay has been an official sponsor of the Met Gala since 2024, and numerous designers made use of eBay for sourcing fabric in their custom designs.
Designers Maxwell Osborn and Dao-yi Chow of Public School used eBay to source the fabrics they used to create their own corseted looks as well as the suit worn by Patrick Schwarzenegger. SZA also wore an upcycled dress designed by Emily Bode with material from eBay, and model Paloma Elsesser wore a dress made from scraps of 100 vintage dresses sourced from eBay — they were cut up and rearranged by designer Francesco Risso.
Outside of eBay, other guests wore vintage and archival pieces, like Blake Lively, whose Versace look was based on a 2006 vintage dress, embellished with additional fabric. The continued presence of sponsors like eBay, as well as vintage and archival pieces, is a sign of high fashion’s increasing comfort with the secondhand market.
The rise of mass fashion
For all the focus on high fashion brands like Chanel, there was also a notable presence of more affordable mass brands.
Zac Posen for Gap dressed Kendall Jenner in a dress made from white Gap T-shirts cut up and stitched together. Posen has previously dressed Met Gala attendees like Da-vine Joy Randolph in custom Gap.
Zara also made its Met Gala debut, with singer Stevie Knicks wearing a custom blue dress from Zara, designed by John Galliano, who is creating an entire collection with Zara later this year. (The piece Knicks wore won’t be part of it, however.)
Tech takeover
Jeff Bezos sponsored the event this year and acted as honorary chair, which has brought no shortage of protests and criticism over his billionaire status and ties to the Trump administration.
But Bezos wasn’t the only tech billionaire in attendance. Mark Zuckerberg made his first appearance at the event, although other Meta employees like Instagram head Adam Mosseri have attended before. And Google co-founder Sergey Brin also made an appearance.
The tech takeover of fashion was pointedly satirized in the recently released “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” in which a clueless tech oligarch is the villain, threatening the integrity of a storied fashion institution by buying control of it to please his girlfriend.
Mounting political tensions
The criticism of Bezos’ involvement in the event, along with general anger over rising wealth inequality, was felt in a number of ways at the event.
Some were subtle. The mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, did not attend, instead releasing a photo series earlier in the week highlighting the garment workers who make the fashion industry run. Notably, two of the workers featured in the series are former Amazon workers who are pushing for a bill that would require Amazon to hire its delivery drivers rather than treat them as contractors.
In what was likely another subtle commentary about the blinding allure of money and wealth, actress Sarah Paulson wore a $1 bill as a blindfold covering her eyes.
Other guests were less subtle. Cher was asked on the red carpet how she felt about Bezos’ involvement, to which she bluntly responded, “I’m not a fan.”
Outside of the attendees, there were far greater acts of opposition. An activist group called “Everyone Hates Elon” announced on Saturday that it had hidden bottles of fake urine throughout the Metropolitan Museum, a commentary on Amazon employees being forced to urinate in bottles due to the company’s productivity demands.
The backlash against Bezos even managed to intrude on the event itself. At one point in the night, a protester breached the barricade set up to keep the public out. The New York Times reported that, despite the quick apprehension and expulsion of the protester, the mood on the red carpet was notably tense for the rest of the night.
