The Met Gala’s grand procession may have ended, but the night’s true choreography unfolded away from the museum steps. At Boom, the subterranean den beneath The Standard, High Line, the evening’s second act began with a knowing nod to the corset’s enduring legacy—a garment that, like the party itself, oscillates between constraint and liberation. Designer Christian Siriano, whose own collections often reimagine the structural underpinnings of lingerie, arrived early alongside model Coco Rocha and artist Dustin Yellin, as Samantha Ronson spun tracks from the DJ booth.
Gabriela Hearst, co-host of the evening with her Met date Grace Gummer, made a sartorial confession: “I wore a knitted dress, because I knew I was going to go straight from the Met Gala to the after party, because I wanted to dance.” Her choice echoes a historical shift—from the whalebone stays of the 19th century to the flexible, dance-ready silhouettes of the 1920s flapper, when lingerie first shed its rigid architecture for freedom of movement.
Gummer traded her gold leather gala dress for a hooded suede look, while Luke Evans, fresh off a Tony nomination for *The Rocky Horror Show*, mingled with Adam Lambert. Janelle Monáe, whose style often pays homage to the androgynous allure of 1920s boudoir dressing, swept through. A$AP Rocky made a swift appearance, a nod to the modern celebrity’s perpetual wardrobe change—a ritual not unlike the Victorian woman’s layered dressing sequence.
As midnight passed, Kelela delivered a surprise performance atop the circular bar, her voice threading through the crowd like a silk ribbon. The lingerie of it all? It’s the unseen architecture of freedom—the garter, the slip, the bustier—that lets a body move from gala to after-party without losing its form.
Originally reported by WWD