Timothee Chalamet ♥’s New York. So much so that he walked—quite literally—onto the Met Gala carpet in a look that could double as an NYC weekend uniform—only classed up in exactly the way he knows best. This was the kind of fit one might wear to, say, grab a bagel from Tompkins Square downtown before hopping on the uptown train to check out a museum.
Along with some slouchy white sweats, Chalamet—who is one of the co-chairs of this year’s Gala—wore a melange of his favorite designers: a satin Haider Ackermann tuxedo jacket, a clingy Rick Owens turtleneck, and some clean white Chuck Taylors. He even fastened a few 1920s Cartier brooches to the sweats. (He was recently named as the brand’s newest “Friend of the House,” and wore a few vintage Cartier pieces while in Venice). The mix is somewhat uncharacteristic for the event, given that celebs usually wear an entire look by one brand, but also feels very New York, and true to Timmy’s affinity for designer streetwear.
As Ackermann, who is French, told Vogue of the look, “Whenever I visit America, I am always struck by the wonderful clash of uptown and downtown cultures, of music and sports, and all of this energy just mixing together.” Speaking to Keke Palmer on the carpet, Chalamet characterized the look as “an homage to Chuck Taylor.” Which might sound a little youthfully impudent—until you remember that the theme of the night was “American independence.” And what says that better than sweats and a crispy pair of Chucks?
Given that Instagram is sponsoring this year’s Met Gala, it only makes sense that Chalamet would kick off the event with a good ol’ Instagram Live. And what a Live it was: in sometimes brooding footage, Chalamet sits on a gallery bench in the building was, up until last year, the Met Breuer—it’s now the Frick Madison, and was the original location of the Whitney Museum—wearing what would become his carpet outfit, minus the Haider jacket. Video game-like camerawork, filmed by cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, followed him through the space, skulking down its brutalist staircases and lamp-festooned lobby while alternatively considering and literally tearing through works of art by the mononymous French artist JR, before eventually walking up Museum Mile to the Met proper.
Once Timmy turned onto Fifth Avenue, things quickly turned chaotic. The duo only made it a few steps before passersby began to recognize him, at first standing slack-jawed in the middle of the sidewalk before swarming him for photos. Oh, New York. Never change!
