Met Gala 2014: The 54 best dressed on last night’s epic red carpet

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If reports about Anna Wintour wanting this year’s Met Gala to be more exclusive were true, they certainly did not apply to the A-list. Last night’s red carpet was stacked (and we mean stacked) with just about everyone from the recluse to rising star. Surely, it had something to do with the fact that last night was the inaugural Met Gala celebrating the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s renamed Anna Wintour Costume Center. Maybe too, it was just like the rest of us have been trained to understand: The Met Gala is not to be missed.

Honouring oft-forgotten American couturier Charles James, last night’s event was all about 1950s glamour. Its “white tie” guest-list prompted gents like Johnny Depp and Kanye West to wear tails, Zoe Saldana to wear a recreated Michael Kors bustle and both Taylor Swift and Sarah Jessica Parker to take to the stairs with over-the-top Oscar de la Renta trains. Unlike the sometimes cookie cutter Oscars, the Met Gala is a time to break out some real steez and red carpet queen Lupita Nyong’o did just that in a flapper-inspired feathered Prada dress. Perhaps more Poiret than James, the dress made for some serious chatter from both the “for” and “against” camps. Fellow red carpet queen (and queen of life, truly) Rihanna went anti-theme in a sexy stomach-baring Stella McCartney dress which killed, as usual.