5 Ways the Met Gala Could Have Done Better: May 17, 2024

It’s Day 22 of my Spring Challenge!

As a reminder, this challenge means that either you get an email in your inbox 5 times per week until May 31st (which means I get a set of luxurious, vintage jammies) OR I have to donate $5 to a charity I hate for every week that I miss the goal.

Series #4: 5 Ways the Met Gala Could Have Done Better

As is apparently a running theme (and I do mean RUNNING), I have 15 minutes to write this issue. *flexes fingers* get ready for a mess of an edition.

Today’s Pick: Beetle Wings!

Those Victorians were weird, weird people. Nobody can deny it. But you do have to give them credit for their propensity for experimentation, whether it was ingesting cocaine, using arsenic for wallpaper, or beetle wings as clothing decor.

But with the last one, they really hit the nail on the head (probably of the beetle, now that I think about it). Look! Isn’t it pretty?

So, how does beetle wing embroidery fit into the Met Gala theme?

NUMBER 1: made from natural materials and looks like emerald-like leaves. “ “Garden” - checked!

NUMBER 2: Ancient technique. “Time” - checked!

NUMBER 3: Comes from the world over!

The name “beetle-wing embroidery” is a bit of a lie. The embroidery isn’t technically made of beetles’ wings, but the hard casings that protect their wings. Usually, these are harvested ethically and are not unlike honey or snail mucin.

Beetle wing embroidery has its roots in India, from the Mughal and Rajput courts. Beginning in the 1700s, the English presence in India meant that this technique really gained flight (get it? gained flight? cause wings? huh? oh never mind) and made its way across several seas.

Several Victorian patterns also made the wings look less like wings and more like beetles themselves as Victorians went back to naturalism in an era of industrialization.

In England, the trend became restricted to artists and eccentrics by the end of the 19th century. It didn’t truly die out until the end of the 1920s when dresses became lighter and less able to bear the weight of the style of heavy embroidery beetle-wing had evolved into. It continued to be seen on purses and shawls, which could bear this weight, but the style eventually died out.

@oliviainflowers, a New York-based designer, featured a beetle-wing organza dress in this year’s Met Costume Institute exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”. You can see her excellent dress at the top of this post!

I only wish designers from the runway would have thought in this direction.

And it has been 15 minutes so I must run - always excited to write this issue!

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xoxo,

Simra7