Revisiting the Best Florals on the Met Gala Red Carpet

In case you hadn’t heard, Vogue is having a garden party on May 6. The 2024 Met Gala, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” will examine how technology can breathe new life into garments too old and fragile to be worn again. The evening’s dress code, however, is “The Garden of Time,” based on the short story by J.G. Ballard.

It’s safe to say we’re expecting a lot of florals on this year’s Met Gala carpet. So why not revisit some of the guests who—inadvertently—nailed the 2024 dress code? Naturally, some years were more in line with “The Garden of Time” theme than others. At last year’s “Karl Lagergfeld: A Line of Beauty,” many guests highlighted the late designer’s fondness for camellias; 2016’s “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” also lent itself to many nature versus machine interpretations.

The Met carpets of the past several years have shown us that florals can, indeed, be groundbreaking. Some attendees have offered up abstract interpretations, like Rihanna’s sculptural Commes des Garçons from 2017, or Adwoa Aboah in a blurred green botanical Marc Jacobs in 2018. Others, however, kept their interpretations classic, including Suki Waterhouse’s impossibly pretty Fendi number last year.

Above all, our guests continue to prove that florals can pack the power of surprise: in 2023, Elle Fanning opted to carry a bouquet of daisies, matching the crown that sat atop her head, and in 2016, Beyoncé proved that latex and florals can mix.

Ahead of the May 6, 2024 Met Gala take a look back at florals on the red carpet from years past.