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As of Monday night’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/05/02/rihanna-met-gala-karl-lagerfeld/" target=_blank>Met Gala</a>, the hottest clothes in fashion all have one thing in common: They’re old.

Model Gisele Bündchen arrived in a white sequin ensemble by Chanel: a column of white sequin and tulle strips, under an enormous tulle and feather cape. It was a couture look from Spring 2007, but it was also something Bündchen had worn before, in a spread from Vogue Korea that same year. She was inspired by … herself!

Bündchen was not the only attendee repeating a look. Nicole Kidman wore a feathered peach gown designed by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/05/01/karl-lagerfeld-met-gala/" target=_blank>Karl Lagerfeld</a> for a Baz Luhrmann-directed Chanel advertisement in 2004, in which Kidman runs through Times Square and hops into a random car to spend a “Roman Holiday”-esque handful of days with a hunky nobody (played by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro).

When Kidman arrived in the dress, the Zoomers on my Twitter feed practically had a meltdown. The dress had never been seen in public — it was not a runway creation, but made by Lagerfeld for the ad — and the idea that she was bringing “to life” a dress she wore to play a thinly veiled, fantasy version of herself was a ravishing wink at the layers of celebrity and role-playing that fashion creates.

Vintage, or “archival fashion,” as it’s often known, was the night’s biggest theme. Dua Lipa, Margot Robbie, Penélope Cruz, Huma Abedin and Suki Waterhouse all wore old pieces by the late designer, from his years designing at Chanel and Fendi, respectively. Chloe designer Gabriela Hearst paid homage to her predecessor (Lagerfeld designed Chloe from 1963-1983 and from 1992-1997) by dressing herself, Olivia Wilde, Maude Apatow and Vanessa Kirby in Chloe looks from the 1980s that appear in the exhibition. They are sexy-funny trompe l’oeil frocks — didja hear the one about the woman whose sequin-back gown was actually a shower head?! — and reminders of the place of wit in Lagerfeld’s oeuvre.

But they’re also a wonderful way for Hearst, who obsesses over sustainability in her eponymous line and at Chloe, to remind us that clothing is meant to be worn over and over again, for years to come. And ideally, it’s handed down.

Runway designs from past seasons — sometimes from decades ago, and sometimes just a few years old — have been a red carpet flex for a few years now. Kim Kardashian was one of the first, wearing an Alexander McQueen couture gown from Spring 2003 to the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party in 2020; Cate Blanchett has made it her habit over the past several months to re-wear or rework old red carpet looks.

Brands from Valentino to Raf Simons to Madewell have drummed up ideas to get in on the vintage market. One of the advertisements that ran throughout Vogue’s live stream was for a collaboration between the magazine and eBay. In the ad, rapper Ice Spice talks about the platform as a great place to shop for vintage designer stuff.

Allie Caren

But this year’s Met Gala confirmed that the embrace of vintage clothes is now driving fashion, even at the highest level of business and celebrity. For any readers under 30, this observation will seem ridiculously obvious, even passe. But not everyone is so quick to adapt to trends as Zoomers, and the changes in our shopping and dressing habits — if there are any — will take a lot more than just celebrities showing us that our old garments are things to be treasured.

The Met Gala 2023 looks you don’t want to miss

The Met Gala is in part so fascinating because it sets in stone a percolating mood or idea that then reverberates for a handful of years to come. The 2019 Camp-themed show, for example, brought us a period of red carpet dressing that was so outlandish and performative that we’re only just getting out of it. (That’s why Jared Leto, dressed as an enormous cat this year, looked so silly.)

You might say the Lagerfeld exhibition might mark the true bookend to that era. Lagerfeld was no fantasist when it came to silhouettes, and even his most exhilarating creations were somehow wearable, mostly suits or conservatively cut gowns. Nearly everyone on Monday night looked agreeably lovely, even ravishing.

Karl Lagerfeld, and his problematic past, take center stage at the Met Gala

Why vintage now? The big message that Gen Z has ushered into contemporary consumer culture is that old is better than new — an attitude that elder generations would do well to adopt. Getting something from a thrift store or an online secondary market is preferable to something new. And the notion that something a season or two old is undesirable (which is the foundation of fashion itself) has practically disappeared.

But it also shows how fashion, like so much else of popular culture, is mired in re-creating old moments, seeking to conjure a bygone high from a time that, because it happened in the past, is simply better. Television shows are reboots of long-done ideas, films are all remakes or sequels, and songs are a mishmash of decade-old mediocre hits. Even the new looks at Monday’s gala were references to older looks. We are drugged by nostalgia, even for things that weren’t very good to begin with.

ASME nominee for reviews and criticism, 2023

University of Pennsylvania, BA in English and art history

Rachel Tashjian is a fashion writer at The Washington Post.

Rachel Tashjian

Vintage looks rule the Met Gala red carpet

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Met Gala 2023 - Karl Lagerfeld Red Carpet Looks

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