A moving remembrance. Pete Davidson made his Met Gala debut on Monday, September 13, and accessorized his look with a tribute to his late father.
The Saturday Night Live star, 27, wore a suit dress designed by Thom Browne, accessorized with jewels from Fred Leighton and sunglasses from Silhouette. According to E! News, the garnet necklace was chosen to honor the memory of the actor’s dad, Scott Davidson, a firefighter who died in 2001 while responding to the September 11 terrorist attack in New York City.
In an interview with GQ, the King of Staten Island actor said he initially thought his Met Gala invitation was a joke. Once he realized it wasn’t, he decided to go big. “If you’re gonna wear a dress, what better way or place to do it than the Met, you know?” he quipped. “I’m really excited and really stoked that they thought I could pull this off, which is hilarious.”
One added bonus he didn’t expect? The freedom of movement afforded by the garment. “I’m excited for how easy it is to pee,” he joked. “You can literally just lift it up.”
While speaking with Keke Palmer on the red carpet ahead of the event, he added that his fashion inspiration for the evening was a “slutty nun.” He also said that he decided to wear sunglasses so that he could watch his fellow attendees incognito. Two of his ex-girlfriends, Margaret Qualley and Kaia Gerber, were also on hand at the soirée.
Other celebrities dressed by Browne this year include Mj Rodriguez, Sharon Stone, Erykah Badu and Amandla Stenberg. “Everyone is almost like family,” the designer told Variety on Monday. “They’ve worn me in the past, seen my collections, and I’m very familiar with what they do. There’s a mutual respect, for me that’s where it starts. What you see at my table is very representative of American fashion and how it’s viewed around the world.”
Browne’s partner is Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For 2021’s theme and accompanying exhibit, Bolton settled on “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” because he wanted to honor American designers’ sense of ingenuity amid ongoing political turmoil.
“I think that the emphasis on conscious creativity was really consolidated during the pandemic and the social justice movements,” he told Vogue in April. “And I’ve been really impressed by American designers’ responses to the social and political climate, particularly around issues of body inclusivity and gender fluidity, and I’m just finding their work very, very self-reflective. I really do believe that American fashion is undergoing a Renaissance.”
Keep scrolling for more photos of Pete’s Met Gala debut:
