The Met Gala has seen its fair share of over-the-top trains, and the choreography that is required to transport them is often as elaborate as the hemlines themselves. Just ask Blake Lively, who turned up in a sultry Versace gown so grand, she had to take a party bus to the ball. Spliced with sheer panels on both sides and covered in so many beads that it took 600 hours to embroider the bodice alone, there was no chance that Lively’s entrance would go unnoticed. Then again, the actress is no stranger to going long on fashion’s biggest night: Last year, for example, she swanned in wearing a mermaid dress (also custom Versace) that exploded into a swirl of feathers matched to husband Ryan Reynolds’s blue tie. The year before that, an expectant Lively turned heads in a Burberry dress with a Watteau train that did wonders for balancing out a growing baby bump. True to form, Lively made a strong statement both coming and going last night, thanks in no small part to a plunging back that dipped down dangerously low, held together by a few delicate corseted things that also mimicked the gold thread stitched into the design. The end result was brimming with regal grandeur—one that was in keeping with Versace’s famously opulent house codes, and that of this year’s Costume Institute exhibition, which celebrates fashion and the Catholic imagination. To complete the crowning moment, Lively finished the look with a towering gold headdress that seemed as if it could pierce the heavens. (If nothing else, it certainly made for an angelic finish to counteract any party bus–related pole dancing on the way over to the museum.)
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