Eco-Friendly Elegance: Sustainable Fashion at the 2024 Met Gala

The Met Gala (a.k.a the biggest night in fashion) has been and gone, and this year the theme was “The Garden of Time”, inspired by J.G Ballard’s haunting short story of the same name.

In the story, a Count and his wife use magical flowers to manipulate time and hold back a creeping chaos and angry mob that threatens their idyllic garden.

Many designers and attendees drew parables between the story and our current struggles with climate change, and were inspired to take a more sustainable approach to their sartorial choices.

Actress Amanda Seyfried requested a sustainable garment after interpreting the encroaching mob as a metaphor for climate change, joking that she would “only attend the Met Gala with solar panels on her head”. Her stylist, Elizabeth Stewart, delivered, sourcing a stunning silver Prada dress made from leftover deadstock fabric from their Spring 2009 collection.

Climate champion Stella McCartney dressed a number of famous names this evening, such as Ed Sheeran, FKA Twigs, and Cara Delevigne. In collaboration with sustainable jewellery brand VRAI, McCartney used exclusively sustainable materials for these looks, such as forest-friendly viscose and VRAI’s signature diamonds, which are “gently grown” over a period of about 4 weeks by crystalising greenhouse gases in their carbon-neutral certified foundry.

British-American designer Harris Reed created a stunning couture look for actress Demi Moore that beautifully played with the Gala themes of decay and delicacy. Made out of vintage archival silk wallpaper, the fragile dress represented the fleeting beauty of a flower, perfect for a moment, before it starts to decays and wither.

Singer Charli XCX was another sustainability superstar, wearing a stunning custom Marni dress patchworked together out of vintage t-shirts from the 50s and 60s, with a nod to designer Francesco Risso’s signature “mended garment” aesthetic.

There’s never any shortage of sparkle at the Met Gala, and Janelle Monae’s sequinned Vera Wang gown was no exception, but this one has a twist – the sequins and molded flowers were all made out of recycled plastic bottles!

These looks showed that while opulence and beauty are important, fashion can also be a powerful platform for change. The inventive and eco-friendly outfits on display offer a glimpse into a future where style and sustainability go hand-in-hand, and we can only hope to see designers and attendees continue to push the boundaries of what is possible when it comes to fashion and its impact on the environment.