Kristen Stewart’s Stylist Talks About Her Met Gala Look from Karl Lagerfeld’s 2016 Cruise Collection (Exclusive)
Kristen Stewart is wearing a high-contrast, black-and-white Chanel outfit from Karl Lagerfeld’s 2016/2017 Cruise Collection at tonight’s Met Gala.
To arrive at her choice, there was one thought that was paramount when the star and her stylist, Tara Swennen, began discussing what the actress would wear for the evening, which honors Karl Lagerfeld. Fashion’s biggest night takes place ahead of the May 5 opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute exhibition, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty.”
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“The main baseline through all of this is that she and Karl had a very special relationship,” Swennen exclusively tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So the nature of where we began was making sure we honored that relationship, as well as the DNA of the brand.” (See all the best looks from 2023 Met Gala red carpet here.)
The brand, of course, is Chanel, which named Stewart an ambassador in 2013, a relationship that continues with the house’s 2023 Spring/Summer ad campaign. And there’s no mistaking she found Lagerfeld endlessly inspiring, both personally and professionally: “Such a leader, such a teacher, such a compassionate, endlessly curious motherfucker,” said Stewart in 2019 at the pre-Oscar Charles Finch dinner in Los Angeles, just days after Lagerfeld’s death on Feb. 19 of that year.
Swennen has coordinated a wealth of Chanel looks for Stewart’s appearances over the past decade, but with this high-wattage tribute to Lagerfeld, she knew the stakes were a bit higher. “We started our conversation fairly early in January,” Swennen says. “I went to the couture show in January, and at that time I met with the Chanel team, and they were very generous. They said, ‘You guys look for your own inspiration, you tell us what you want to do, and we’ll see what we can do from there.’”
One collection was already resonating in the minds of both the actress and her stylist: Lagerfeld’s Cruise collection for Chanel in 2016, which the house famously staged on an outdoor promenade in Havana, Cuba. “Kristen wore two looks from that collection to the Cannes Film Festival that same year, but there’s one look we loved but never get a chance to use,” Swennen says. “It seemed really right for the Met Gala, also because it really speaks to Kristen and is something she would do.”
Stewart is wearing Look #5 from that 2016/2017 Cruise collection, a white cropped jacket with a black satin lapel and black high-waisted trousers, paired with a white shirt and black tie. The look, Swennen says, is not meant to evoke thoughts of a Lagerfeld impersonation. “Kristen is doing a nod to him personally, but this is not about imitating Karl,” Swennen says in an interview Friday evening. “Word on the street is that she may dye her hair, which she has done for past Met Galas, perhaps white or gray, and that would be a nod to Karl as well. But the overall look has more of a zoot suit vibe about it, and Kristen was really drawn to that. It’s more about leaning into an androgynous look, while it also harkens to the way it went down the runway. But overall the look feels very Kristen.”
Once the look was decided, it was just a matter of putting together pieces that fit Stewart’s petite frame. “She’s wearing the pants that went down the runway, but we did have to remake the jacket,” Swennan notes. “For the tuxedo shirt underneath, we found a wonderful light fabric, and I’m ditching the cummerbund for a belt. We also were able to recreate the shoes, a leather snake-printed flat, because they were no longer available. Then, for the tie, I found something perfect when we were at the Berlin Film Festival, a sort of fusion of a regular tie and a bow tie. Anything that’s sort of miniaturized draws my eye for Kristen.”
Because the desire is to evoke the runway look, Stewart won’t wear any jewelry, but a Chanel watch was still being discussed as of Monday afternoon, “either a men’s watch or something tiny with a satin strap,” Swennen adds.
How might Stewart’s look fit in with the overall sartorial mood of this year’s Met Gala? “I’m pretty excited about this year,” Swennen says. “A lot of the top stylists, we talk among ourselves a lot. You’re definitely going to see a lot of black and white, a lot of homages to Karl’s Chanel era and the quintessential idea of Karl. I don’t know if it will be specific archived pieces or a lot of homages, but I think you will see a lot of sunglasses, a lot of gloves, gold medallions and gold chains. I think we’ll see it all.”
And amid that flurry of the Lagerfeld aesthetic, Kristen Stewart is sure to be feeling good about her homage, Swennen says. “As her longtime stylist, I know she loves it in every way, shape and form — she’s going to be so comfortable and so at ease, she’ll be leaping up those museum steps.”
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