The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala might be the most-watched red carpet on earth. It’s way more interesting than the Oscars. It’s more serious than the MTV Video Music Awards. And it’s certainly more entertaining than those two combined. Some of it has to do with watching A-listers from every walk of life (movies, music, high society) in the same place. But most of it has to do with seeing how guests attack—or don’t—a given year’s theme. Most famous guys—or, more accurately, their stylists—do right by the black tie (or, on occasion, white tie) dress code, if they play it safe. Then there are the menswear mavericks, the guys who either don’t care, or care so much that their Met Gala fits defy dress code, convention, and sometimes description (armor? robot arms? robot armor arms?). Here are the men who have honored the night’s fashion-first ethos through the years, Internet comments be damned.
