The rest of Twitter may have been confused about what the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual gala’s “camp” theme entailed, but not its artist community. While the theme inspired plenty of the over-the-top ensembles fans have come to expect from the Met Gala’s celebrity attendees, artists shared their similarly flamboyant original designs with the trending Twitter hashtag #metsona. It’s a fairly new tradition, but one that caught fire thanks to this year’s bombastic aesthetic and the fondness many creatives have for it.
The trend appears to have originated with a tweet last year by artist Kevin Wada encouraging his followers to doodle what they would have worn to the highly anticipated event. Last year’s theme, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” stirred up controversy for encouraging the use of holy artifacts as inspiration for modern garments. However, the show proved immensely popular nonetheless. At the same time, hundreds of artists delighted in creating what’s essentially cosplay for one of the most intentionally extra-as-hell events in the industry. While the hashtag started on Twitter, it quickly spread to other outlets frequented by artists like Tumblr and DeviantArt.
So this year while Fantastic Beasts star Ezra Miller rocked multiple pairs of eyeballs and the Jenner sisters gave viewers deja vu with their gowns at the Met Gala, artists flooded the internet with their takes on camp red-carpet looks. Everything from Disney Channel original movies to Ikea furniture to cryptids and aliens served as influences on the designs. Considering many gala attendees of the straight male variety did little to incorporate the theme other than bedazzling their suits, the variety and creativity were refreshing. It may be why this year’s versions gained so much popularity that the hashtag earned its own Twitter moment Wednesday.
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