NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 06: Jennifer Lopez attends The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

It was 10am and the pink carpet was still being stapled into the steps of the Metropolitan Museum on Monday night. Across town – and probably in her apartment inside the tallest residential building in the world – Jennifer Lopez was busy getting ready for the night head.

Her dress for the evening was designed by her very close friend Luigi Massi – who worked for Versace – and who had passed away at the age of 53 of a heart attack. This silver beaded gown was one of the last he worked on. It took 50 days to complete.

“I’ll tell you one thing. Luigi would have made this waist much smaller for me,” Lopez says holding back tears. “He would make sure that I look very skinny… but don’t squeeze the back! Somehow he would not squeeze the back. So open here, and close here, yeah? He was so good at that.”

The master tailor also famously sewed dozens of Angelina Jolie’s children’s sketches into her wedding veil when she married Brad Pitt in 2014.

In a new video released to her YouTube channel, you can hear Lopez directing designers on Massi’s ways and asking who she should contact about her matching beaded head piece in Massi’s absence. “Donatella?” she asks. “Knowing Luigi was making this gown when he passed away. It’s difficult, but at the same time it’s also a celebration of his work,” the Grammy winner said. It took Lopez seven hours to get ready that day – but clad in the sparling Versace fringing and Harry Winston jewels, Lopez was a stand-out on the carpet.

Inside the event, Lopez’s boyfriend former Yankee’s player Alex Rodriguez ignored Anna Wintour’s rule of no photos, taking a selfie with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Wintour famously prohibited guests from taking photos inside the venue in 2015.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 06: (L-R) Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian West, Kanye West, and Alex Rodriguez attend The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Tachman/MG19/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)