Gwen Stefani made her triumphant return to the Met Gala on Monday (May 2). The fashion icon and better half of Blake Shelton attended the 2022 event at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in support of the Costume institute’s “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibit. The night’s theme was “gilded glamour,” and Gwen, 52, delivered on it in her own way: by outshining them all in a billowy, bright, and beautiful green-yellow outfit.
Gwen has had an infrequent presence at the Met Gala throughout the years, but when she does show up, it’s a moment. In 2013, she attended the Gala in support of the “Punk: Chaos to Couture” exhibit. Gwen, who first honed her musical chops in the SoCal skater punk scene, wore a Maison Margiela dress, one that wrapped her chest in a giant black bow, per Vogue UK. It was one of the few outfits that adhered to the theme of the night since most of the celebrity guests leaned into the “couture” instead of the “chaos.”
It would be six years before Gwen appeared at a Met Gala again. In 2019, in part of the Gala celebrating the Costume Institute’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion” exhibit, Gwen and Jeremy Scott turned their eyes to Las Vegas for inspiration. She arrived at the event in a corseted outfit dripping in rhinestones. Her white fur coat, with its massive train, invoked the sensation of a burlesque showgirl. “The look I designed for Gwen is a mix of all the kinds of camp iconography that she and I love. There is some showgirl Vegas feathery fluff, some sparkly razzle-dazzle rhinestones, and some old-school French boudoir bombshell action going on,” Scott told Vogue. “Gwen will be dripping in jewels like she just cleaned out Cartier, Van Cleef, and Harry Winston in one fell swoop!”
As Vogue UK noted, Joan Didion observed that Las Vegas “is the most extreme and allegorical of American settlements, bizarre and beautiful in its venality and in its devotion to immediate gratification.” Thus, as Vogue UK noted, Vegas was a great example of what constitutes “camp,” and with Gwen running her “Just A Girl” residency at Planet Hollywood’s Zappos Theater, it just made sense for her to bring a bit of that Sin City to the Big Apple. While attending Moschino’s 2019 Met Gala afterparty,” Gwen changed into a bedazzled tank-and-miniskirt combo, one that replicated the New York Post logo in Swarovski crystals.
Gwen also attended the Met Gala in 2010, wearing a dress from her own L.A.M.B. line, per Just Jared. The champagne-colored dress featured white tule over her black bra. The almost Amazonian reinterpretation matched the theme of “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.”
\Her date for the 2010 event was her then-husband, Gavin Rossdale. The couple split five years later. In 2021, Gwen and Blake Shelton married after six years of dating.