“L Love gold,” said Megan Thee Stallion Saturday night, sitting in a makeup chair somewhere in Memphis, getting ready for a festival appearance — also a good thing, as 48 hours later, in New York, the rapper is drenching her second Met Gala with the stuff.
When she arrived at the Met Monday, the gold in sequins and beads slid down her body. It clung to her curves, except where revealing cutouts flew down her ribs, waist, and thighs. The dress is strapless with a train and designed by Jeremy Scott, the creative director of Moschino.
Weeks ago, when Megan Thee Stallion first spoke to Mr. Scott about her desired look, she told him, “I want skin and I want gold and I just want it to be sexy. All I really, really, really want , really want, is my moment on the stairs.”
That moment has grown into a Met Gala tradition — and de facto competition — pioneered over the past decade by guests like Beyoncé (who rode a fluffy purple Givenchy train from 2012) and Rihanna (who in 2015 drove a special stretch limo that could accommodate her 4-meter-long fur-trimmed yellow train). Last fall, more than two dozen guests arrived with trains kicking down the stairs.
Megan Thee Stallion’s train this year? “Heavy as hell,” she said. But otherwise, the rapper chose not to stray far from her signature form-fitting, bombshell style. At the latest Met Gala, she named her Old Hollywood-inspired look “Megan Monroe.”
“I’m most confident in this type of silhouette,” she said. “I feel like it gives me the confidence to go in front of all these people, in front of all these cameras, and really kill it.”
Jeremy Scott said he became friends with Megan Thee Stallion after she wrote an op-ed for DailyExpertNews in 2020 about championing black women. The essay left Mr. Scott in tears, and he sent flowers and a note.
“Meg was very in tune with her image and what she looks like and what she wants to look like,” he said of the schedule for the gala.
The rapper’s dress was inspired by the intricate embellishments and carved moldings of an old-money, Gilded Age mansion, Mr. Scott, who wanted to “combine all her hottiness with a little haughtiness, too.” Her cape is made of pieces of gold leather, laser-cut to look like feathers.
“I just see her as a queen, and I wanted her to have this kind of mystique,” he said. “It’s not ‘Game of Thrones’ or Queen Elizabeth, but it’s a nut within this kind of royalty nonetheless.”
