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Just hours before the Met Gala 2019, Refinery29’s Connie Wang tweeted a startling revelation about Céline Dion: “Um, Celine Dion just told @TheCut’s @itsreallynana she thought the theme was sleepaway camp, and that everyone would spend the night together. And then…she found out she could wear sparkles. (This is the most camp thing we’ve ever head).” Like music to our ears, The Cut later confirmed this via Instagram, with Dion herself admitting the gaffe to E! News. “At first, I was a little bit confused when I heard camp, I wasn’t sure what it meant. I thought like camp…ing. We’re going to be camping! We’re going to be at the Met and everybody is going to stay and sleep all night together!” Bless. Her. Camp. Socks. Imagine, though, if Dion, Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Kim Kardashian, Anna Wintour and Harry Styles all spent a night at the Museum in thermals and socks? Snuggling into sleeping bags in couture, eating s’mores and drinking from Thermos, reminiscing about that time Solange and Jay Z had a bust-up in the elevator. Ah, imagine.
Thankfully, Dion got the message. Instead of a trip to Bunnings, Dion made a stylish dash to Oscar De La Renta’s couturiers in Manhattan where there wasn’t a sausage in bread to be seen. Rather, 3000 strands of gilt floor-length fringe made from micro-cut bugle beads, which was artfully applied to a scaly, golden bodysuit and topped with a towering Noel Stewart headpiece of plucked marabou feathers. Camp? You bet!
In part, an homage to her Vegas residency (designer Fernando Garcia said “Celine, to me, is Vegas in the most beautiful way,”) the outfit actually drew its inspiration from the costume Judy Garland wore in the MGM classic “Ziegfeld Girl” and took a staggering 3000 hours to make. Part-Vegas showgirl, part ’20s flapper; the gilded masterpiece made for one of the most jaw-dropping outfits at this year’s Met, made all the more spectacular by the woman wearing it. Hands up, head up, very defined leg out: Dion knows how to rule a Met Gala red carpet – and at 51, defies age doing so. “I feel amazing. I don’t want to take it off. I’m going to go to bed with it tonight,” she told E! News.
Up there with Gaga and Madonna in the Diva-sphere, Dion’s modern renaissance has been nothing short of camp. A style icon, songstress and all-round icon, Dion’s Met Gala performance deserves a standing ovation. All we can say is thank God she found out could wear sparkles. All hail Céline.
