Entertainment
The best red carpet fashions from Met Gala 2024, 'The Garden of Time'
In certain circles, the words “the first Monday in May” and “the Met Gala” have become synonymous with a parade of the most glorious, outrageous couture fashion worn by a hand-selected slice of innovators and image makers.
The event is also the annual fundraiser for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute and signals the launch of an annual exhibition.This year’s,“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” features about 250 items from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection.
The dress code for the 2024 gala is “The Garden of Time,” which is taken from a dystopian 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard that uses a garden as a metaphor for cycles of human creation and destruction. So expect some goth garden wear and lots of florals on black backgrounds.
Last year’s gala, in honor of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, hauled in a reported $22 million and reams of coverage of attendees such as Doja Cat and Jared Leto, both of whom dressed as Lagerfeld’s Persian cat Choupette.
Many attribute the gala’s success to its organizer of more than two decades, the powerful Anna Wintour, who as global editorial director of Condé Nast and editor in chief of Vogue has long been a force in creating international celebrities. Wintour controls who is invited to the invitation-only event.
The gala earns outsize interest partly because its guest list isn’t revealed until the night before and the activities inside the museum gala are also kept secret (thanks to a no cellphones policy).
Yet the event also draws attention to the exhibition, which this year highlights the importance of museum fashion collections and their conservation. “Sleeping Beauties” refers to the delicate garments that will be taken from their temperature-controlled, acid-free tissue nests to come to life in new ways in the museum galleries — but not on mannequins. Using a range of technologies such as X-rays, artificial intelligence, video animation and soundscapes, the curators are reanimating garments that will never be worn again.
Or shouldn’t be. One might consider the exhibit a subtle rebuke to Kim Kardashian, who in 2022 wore —and likely ruined —the fragile gown Marilyn Monroe wore to sing to President John F. Kennedy in 1962. If stylists, celebrities and socialites heed the message to let sleeping beauties lie, then important, historic clothing has a better chance of preservation for future generations.
Co-chair Chris Hemsworth and his wife, Elsa Pataky, coordinate in ivory and gold looks by Tom Ford. If Pataky and her golden princess look is an early indicator, the Met’s “Sleeping Beauties” exhibit title will inspire other fairy tale-themed ensembles.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Co-chair Bad Bunny wears a suit with the tailor’s basting stitches still visible, a hallmark of Maison Margiela, now designed by John Galliano. The Puerto Rican singer carries a bouquet, a nod to the gala’s floral dress code.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Going for the goth floral look, Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue and a Condé Nast executive, shows how to modernize antique clothing by having Loewe designer Jonathan Anderson create a cloak with a similar tulip pattern to one in the Met’s collection. Loewe is among the sponsors for the gala and exhibit.
(Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Emma Chamberlain, in a custom Jean Paul Gaultier gown in lacy, rich brown, looks as if vines have entwined her limbs, a sly nod to the garden theme.
(Kevin Mazur/MG24 / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
Her height and love of theatricality make Gwendoline Christie the perfect fit for a sort of evil godmother look by Maison Margiela. Her stiff, winged hairstyle is a great fantasy accompaniment to her sheer black cape over a blood red strapless gown.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Steven Yeun’s character in “Beef” wouldn’t recognize himself on the Met’s carpet. He’s wearing a custom Thom Browne three-piece suit cut from a jacquard fabric with a pattern of ravens and roses.
(Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images)
Lea Michele, who appeared on Broadway in “Funny Girl,” wouldn’t be out of place in the Ziegfeld Follies wearing a voluminous aqua gown and cape by the Pasadena natives behind Rodarte.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Jennifer Lopez dons a silvery Shiaparelli sheer gown embellished with 2.5 million bugle beads that is vintage JLo: She practically invented the trend for wearing nude-look gowns on red carpets. But it’s the butterfly wing edging at the neckline that brings the drama.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Mindy Kaling’s tawny Gaurav Gupta gown with a gazillion gathers and a ginormous back bow makes her look like the fairy godmother we always knew she could be.
(John Shearer / WireImage)
Designer Thom Browne is having a great showing at this year’s Met Gala, even dressing Ben Simmons of the Brooklyn Nets in a customized version of a look from the designer’s fall 2024 collection. The clock handbag brings home the “Garden of Time” theme.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Singer-songwriter Tyla took the “Garden of Time” theme to its literal extreme with her Balmain dress made of sculpted sand, accessorized with an hourglass clutch.
(Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images)
Actor Colman Domingo went through awards season killing it with every red carpet appearance and now he’s showing how to properly slay wearing a cape, no superhero role required. His bouquet of calla lilies brings home the garden theme.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Rebecca Ferguson goes for the spooky look in a Thom Browne couture gown and cape ensemble that reportedly needed 30 craftsmen, who worked thousands of hours to cover it with 60,000 crystals and 7,000 ravens made of raffia. The genius bit? The beading at the shoulders that looks so like feathers.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Ayo Edebiri blooms in a backless, floor-length sweep of floral embellishment, designed by Jonathan Anderson for Loewe.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Jamie Dornan may play sexy bad boys, but with his pinstriped trousers, knee-length tailcoat and nubby vest, he’s giving Winston Churchill vibes.
(Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
You can count on style icon Sarah Jessica Parker to put the “costume” in costume ball. She looks royal with a Richard Quinn gown puffed to enormous volume with an internal pannier, golden fascinator, matching Victorian boots and a strand of pearls nearly twice her height.
(Kevin Mazur/MG24 / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
Among the many men who are adding adornment to their lapels (a trend that gained ground during recent awards shows), actor Mike Faist (“Challengers”) pins a radish-shaped brooch on his Loewe double-breasted blazer, which he paired with white trousers.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
If you love visual puns, you’ll love how “Challengers” star Josh O’Connor wears a tailcoat with extended “tails” that drag the carpet. His low-heel, floral booties are likely the envy of every woman in heels.
(Kevin Mazur/MG24 / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
Director Baz Luhrmann and wife Catherine Martin, an Oscar-winning costume and production designer, coordinate in custom Prada in garden shades of green.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Maleah Joi Moon, star of Broadway’s Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen,” knows how to make an entrance with her Collina Strada gown and it’s extra-long train.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Jack Harlow makes a convincing argument for a new tone of tuxedo — dove gray, a signature color of its maker, the house of Dior.
(Kevin Mazur/MG24 / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
Donald Glover shows how the colors of rich earth — peat moss brown and tan clay — work in a fluid, double-breasted ‘90s style suit with wide trouser legs and the era’s wide tie, all by Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello.
(Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Teyana Taylor, the actor and singer-songwriter who contributed vocals to “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” wears a red-on-red look that could be described similarly.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Designer Tory Burch channeled the iridescent wings of butterflies for Uma Thurman’s periwinkle dress, which features a corset, intricate pleats and a profusion of the delicate (faux) insects fluttering at her shoulders.
(Kevin Mazur/MG24 / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
Broadway veterans and married couple Morgan Spector and Rebecca Hall go big, really big, with the floral theme. His is an oversized Willy Chavarría suit with lapel poppies and hers an ethereal Danielle Frankel strapless silk organza gown with a train of printed and hand-painted flowers flowing yards behind her.
(Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Movie Reviews
Movie Review – SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA
Entertainment
Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter reportedly found dead at San Francisco hotel on New Year’s Day
Victoria Jones, the daughter of Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, was reportedly found dead at a hotel in San Francisco on New Year’s Day. She was 34.
According to TMZ, the San Francisco Fire Department responded to a medical emergency call at the Fairmont San Francisco early Thursday morning. The paramedics pronounced Victoria dead at the scene before turning it over to the San Francisco Police Department for further investigation, the outlet said.
An SFPD representative confirmed to The Times that officers responded to a call at approximately 3:14 a.m. Thursday regarding a report of a deceased person at the hotel and that they met with medics at the scene who declared an unnamed adult female dead.
Citing law enforcement sources, NBC Bay Area also reported that the deceased woman found in a hallway of the hotel was believed to be Jones and that police did not suspect foul play.
“We are deeply saddened by an incident that occurred at the hotel on January 1, 2026,” the Fairmont told NBC Bay Area in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences are with the family and loved ones during this very difficult time. The hotel team is actively cooperating and supporting police authorities within the framework of the ongoing investigation.”
The medical examiner conducted an investigation at the scene, but Jones’ cause of death remains undetermined. Dispatch audio obtained by TMZ and People indicated that the 911 emergency call was for a suspected drug overdose.
Jones was the daughter of Tommy Lee and ex-wife Kimberlea Cloughley. Her brief acting career included roles on films such as “Men in Black II” (2002), which starred her father, and “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (2005), which was directed by her father. She also appeared in a 2005 episode of “One Tree Hill.”
Page Six reported that Jones had been arrested at least twice in 2025 in Napa County, including an arrest on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance and drug possession.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me
Just when you think that you’ve seen and heard all sides of the human migration debate, and long after you fear that the cruel, the ignorant and the scapegoaters have won that shouting match, a film comes along and defies ignorance and prejudice by both embracing and upending the conventional “immigrant” narrative.
“I Was a Strranger” is the first great film of 2026. It’s cleverly written, carefully crafted and beautifully-acted with characters who humanize many facets of the “migration” and “illegal immigration” debate. The debut feature of writer-director Brandt Andersen, “Stranger” is emotional and logical, blunt and heroic. It challenges viewers to rethink their preconceptions and prejudices and the very definition of “heroic.”
The fact that this film — which takes its title from the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35 — is from the same faith-based film distributor that made millions by feeding the discredited human trafficking wish fulfillment fantasy “Sound of Freedom” to an eager conservative Christian audience makes this film something of a minor miracle in its own right.
But as Angel Studios has also urged churchgoers not just to animated Nativity stories (“The King of Kings”) and “David” musicals, but Christian resistence to fascism (“Truth & Treason” and “Bonheoffer”) , their atonement is almost complete.
Andersen deftly weaves five compact but saga-sized stories about immigrants escaping from civil-war-torn Syria into a sort of interwoven, overlapping “Babel” or “Crash” about migration.
“The Doctor” is about a Chicago hospital employee (Yasmine Al Massri of “Palestine 36” and TV’s “Quantico”) whose flashback takes us to the hospital in Aleppo, Syria, bombed and terrorized by the Assad regime’s forces, and what she and her tween daughter (Massa Daoud) went through to escape — from literally crawling out of a bombed building to dodging death at the border to the harrowing small boat voyage from Turkey to Greece.
“The Soldier” follows loyal Assad trooper Mustafa (Yahya Mahayni was John the Baptist in Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints”) through his murderous work in Aleppo, and the crisis of conscience that finally hits him as he sees the cruel and repressive regime he works for at its most desperate.
“The Smuggler” is Marwan, a refugee-camp savvy African — played by the terrific French actor Omar Sy of “The Intouchables” and “The Book of Clarence” — who cynically makes his money buying disposable inflatable boats, disposable outboards and not-enough-life-jackets in Turkey to smuggle refugees to Greece.
“The Poet” (Ziad Bakri of “Screwdriver”) just wants to get his Syrian family of five out of Turkey and into Europe on Marwan’s boat.
And “The Captain” (Constantine Markoulakis of “The Telemachy”) commands a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel, a man haunted by the harrowing rescues he must carry out daily and visions of the bodies of those he doesn’t.
Andersen, a Tampa native who made his mark producing Tom Cruise spectacles (“American Made”), Mel Gibson B-movies (“Panama”) and the occasional “Everest” blockbuster, expands his short film “Refugee” to feature length for “I Was a Stranger.” He doesn’t so much alter the formula or reinvent this genre of film as find points of view that we seldom see that force us to reconsider what we believe through their eyes.
Sy’s Smuggler has a sickly little boy that he longs to take to Chicago. He runs his ill-gotten-gains operation, profiting off human misery, to realize that dream. We see glimpses of what might be compassion, but also bullying “customers” and his new North African assistant (Ayman Samman). Keeping up the hard front he shows one and all, we see him callously buy life jackets in the bazaar — never enough for every customer to have one in any given voyage.
The Captain sits for dinner with family and friends and has to listen to Greek prejudices and complaints about this human life and human rights crisis, which is how the worlds sees Greece reacting to this “invasion.” But as he and his first mate recount lives saved and the horrors of lives lost, that quibbling is silenced.
Here and there we see and hear (in Arabic and Greek with subtitles, and English) little moments of “rising above” human pettiness and cruelty and the simple blessings of kindness.
“I Was a Stranger” was finished in 2024 and arrives in cinemas at one of the bleakest moments in recent history. Cruelty is running amok, unchecked and unpunished. Countries are being destabilized, with the fans of alleged “strong man” rule cheering it on.
Andersen carefully avoids politics — Middle Eastern, Israeli, European and American — save for the opening scene’s zoom in on that Chicago hospital, passing a gaudily named “Trump” hotel in the process, and a general condemnation of Syria’s Assad mob family regime.
But Andersen’s bold movie, with its message so against the grain of current events, compromised media coverage and the mostly conservative audience that has become this film distributor’s base, plays like a wet slap back to reality.
And as any revival preacher will tell you, putting a positive message out there in front of millions is the only way to convert hundreds among the millions who have lost their way.

Rating: PG-13, violence, smoking, racial slurs
Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Ziad Bakri, Omar Sy, Ayman Samman, Massa Daoud, Jason Beghe and Constantine Markoulakis
Credits: Scripted and directed by Brandt Andersen. An Angel Studios release.
Running time: 1:43
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