There’s a reason Rihanna is dubbed the original bad gal, and it has a lot to do with her penchant for breaking (and subsequently rewriting) fashion’s cardinal rules.
As for fashion’s night of nights, the annual Met Gala, the general consensus is that you should leave dressing to the theme for the red carpet, and the red carpet alone.
So, while designers are holed up in hotel rooms putting the finishing touches on their gowns, and the likes of Chanel, Fendi and Chloé are finalising the selects from their archives, Rihanna is proving that she doesn’t need an excuse or dress code to dip into her vintage Chanel selection.
A mere 24 hours ahead of New York’s 5th Avenue being lit up by slews of monochromatic tweed and miles of pastel tulle, Rihanna stepped out in a vintage Chanel ensemble from 1994, proving once again she’s the reigning Queen of the Met Gala.
If it was a competition, Rihanna has just wiped the floor clean in the category of pre-Met Gala dressing.
With this year’s theme ‘Karl: A Line Of Beauty’, the nine-time Grammy Award winner highlighted her love for rules on attire by prancing around New York in a cropped black-and-white fur shawl from Lagerfeld’s seminal Fall/Winter 1994 collection.
The one in which Lagerfeld masterfully took snow bunny realness from après-ski to après-chic with a menage of technicolour fur and statement-making tweeds.
Never the one to be spotted without an accessory, Rihanna also paired her vintage ensemble with a pair of camp interlocking ‘C’ white sunglasses. They’re not practical in the slightest, but oh are they so on theme.
Completing her look is a feathered low-back mini dress courtesy of French enfant terrible Coperni and a pair of strappy Amina Muaddi heels. As the style savant wrote herself, “not even Monday”.
If this is the bar Rihanna’s going to set with her pre-Met evening wear, the Met steps have best prepare themselves for an impossibly high standard to meet.
Even bona fide fashion mavens like Gigi Hadid are shaking in their boots, with the supermodel writing “🤤🤤 Let us try tho 🫠”.
Indeed, Rihanna has just made the playing field uneven, and this sartorial sword fight is one we’re ready to be unleashed.
