To score one of the coveted 450 invites to the Met Gala, you have to be somebody. You can’t just be an actor. You have to be an actor in a hit movie. You can’t just be a model. You have to be a model who walks the runways of New York, London, Milan, and Paris. And you can’t just be someone with cash. You have to have clout.
But to get invited to a Met Gala after-party? You just gotta know somebody.
Which is why every first Monday in May, thousands of New Yorkers get dressed up and go out—all in the name of an event they weren’t even guests at.
Honestly, I’m one of them. I’ve been to seven Met Galas, but it’s incorrect to say I attended. I’m not walking the red carpet in a custom designer gown as hundreds of photographers elbow each other to take my photo. I’m not schmoozing with Rihanna or Kendall Jenner over champagne. I’m not sitting for dinner amid the splendor of the Temple of Dendur, while Cher takes the stage for a “surprise” performance.
Instead, I am working. Usually in a fluorescent-lit basement writing stories about what celebrities wore on the red carpet, or standing politely by a co-chair to ensure they know where they need to be and when. (Or that one year when I assisted with media credential check-in and was supposed to look out for party crashers. I ended up being woefully inept at it: “I know I’m not on your list but I need to use the bathroom inside right now. It’s a medical emergency,” a man told me. “Uhhh…” I said, frantically trying to catch the eye of the Met security guard.)
But the dichotomy between “going” and “attending” the Met? That disappears once the main event is over. Luckily, I’ve always managed to snag a legitimate invite to many of the late-night parties that follow. Sometimes it’s because I’m writing about them. Sometimes it’s just because I know the right people. Either way, at some point during the first Monday in May, the lanyard with my museum access credentials comes off and I finally get to say my own name at the door rather than checking off someone else’s.
In 2022, I was approached by Vogue.com’s then-editor, Chioma Nnadi. She noticed I was always out and about after the Met Gala. She had a fun idea: this year, she’d heard of around a dozen after-parties. Would I want to see if I could attend every single one? I jumped at the chance. And in 2023, I did so again.
This year, I once again undertook my social odyssey Chioma (now the head of editorial content at British Vogue) first laid out for me. It was my most ambitious yet, with over 14 parties on my list. I’ll be upfront: I didn t even come close to making them all.
But boy, it was pretty wild to fail.
Burberry’s after party, which was hosted by Daniel Lee, Naomi Campbell, Jodie Turner-Smith, and British Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi, begins at 10 p.m. I arrive at 10:02 p.m.
My promptness was no small feat, by the way. The night of the event of the Met Gala, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is closed to most vehicle and foot traffic except that coming from two places: The Mark and The Carlyle, the hotels that most guests stay at. To get through, you need to prove that you have a relevant reason to be at either of those places.
“Ma’am, this street’s closed,” an N.Y.P.D officer tells me when I reach the gates blocking off 77th Street.
“I’m attending an event at The Mark,” I tell him. “Mind if I come through?
He gives me a quick up and down. I’m wearing a Marchesa ball gown, which makes me seem legitimate. But I’m also carrying a huge L.L. Bean Tote bag, filled with my laptop, chargers, water bottle, credentials, and frankly a whole lot of other crap I needed while spending 10 hours at the museum. This makes me seem…less legitimate.
After a few seconds of silence, he finally shrugs. “Go on through.” Score.
I arrive to a near-empty room. This is in no way a reflection of Burberry. I just arrived at a time that guaranteed social suicide: The Met Gala, at 10:02 p.m., is still very much going on. All of the party’s co-hosts and half their invited guests were still there. Probably listening to Ariana Grande.
So for now, it’s just me and a few people by the bar. “What time do you think everyone will get here?” A guy nursing a chilled martini asks me.
“I have no idea,” I say back. It’s true. I’d say achieving a critical mass of celebrities is like herding cats. But frankly, I’d much rather take my chances with the felines, even though I’m horribly allergic and the whole ordeal would give me hives. Celebrities are not only their own main characters, but everyone else’s: they have whole entourages whose livelihoods depend on their existence; legions of fans that fawn over their every move. They’ll show up if and when they want to.
They very much do, by the way: Chloë Sevigny and Awkwafina both come, as do Sam Smith and Marc Jacobs. Probably a lot of others too—but I wouldn’t know, because after 20 minutes, I’m already running over my self-allotted time slot for this party. (At this point in the night, I still think I can just about do 14 stops.) I head back out onto 77th Street. Caviar Kaspia will be just another room I’ll never know what happened in.
There’s a pack of paparazzi stationed outside The Mark, waiting to turn their flashes on famous faces. Of which I am not one. So instead they look at me with vague disinterest, disappointment, or not at all. One, out of either pity or confusion, takes a quick snap. “Thanks,” I say appreciatively.
I’m pretty sure he deletes it as soon as I walk away.
“Is…is that a bellhop in a custom Cartier uniform?” I ask my friend Larry as we walk into Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. It’s a rhetorical question. The Cartier logo is clearly splashed across his hat and, well, everything in this room: the matches, the coasters, mini Champagne bottles, the door of the Bemelmans itself.
Yet, this party doesn’t feel sponsored. It just feels cool. Elle Fanning, radiant in a silver dress, talks to Molly Shannon. Jamie Dornan, who walked the red carpet in a custom Loewe three-piece suit, is now wearing a colorful striped polo. (It’s not the only casual outfit change of the night: Sienna Miller, in wide-leg jeans, sits surrounded by friends in a booth—a boho queen holding court.)
While eating perhaps the world’s fanciest pig in a blanket (it’s round and flat… How, Carlyle pastry chefs? How?) I watch Sofia Coppola effortlessly pose for the cameras wearing Chanel. I’ve been at enough of these things that I usually don’t feel starstruck. But with her I do. She exudes such a mysterious coolness—a trait that I, an incessant talker who sends several texts in a row and is prone to word vomit streams of consciousness, have always been desperate to emulate. (“In 2024, I’m going to be more aloof,” I texted my best friend on January 1. “Lol,” she responded.) Like most resolutions, it failed: despite my best efforts to become more well-spoken and pare myself back, on a recent date, a guy joked that I repeated myself a lot. I had to hold back tears—somehow both surprised at the power of my insecurity and not at all.
But I’m at a party and I ain’t unpacking all of that. Instead, I just whisper to Larry: “I really want to buy Sofia Coppola’s lip gloss collab with Augustinus Bader.”
We do a lap of the room together as a pianist croons smooth jazz. In my field of vision, I see two people. The first is a waiter carrying a tray of drinks. The second is Jude Law. I assume Jude Law is grabbing one, so I swerve to avoid them both—only for Jude Law to swerve at the exact same time. We collide, and he grabs my arm as we both slightly stumble.
I have no idea what happened next, as I was too busy staring into his hypnotizing blue eyes. Larry tells me it was a sincere apology and something about not wanting to knock over the glasses.
“Did I sense a vibe?” he asks me as we walk away, one of those friends who is so sincere that, in their mind, believes that you are great enough to get the attention of Jude Law. I laugh. “Larry—that s charisma. He has so much that he’s monetized it for millions.”
We saddled up at the bar… where I physically bumped into my second celebrity of the night, Kieran Culkin. This makes me feel like I’m one karmic step away from spilling a drink over Jessica Biel or Meg Ryan, so I take it as my cue to leave.
As I walk back out onto Madison Avenue, I hear Jon Batiste break out into song.
Stella McCartney and TikTok have taken over the entire Casa Cruz townhouse, but when I arrive, most people are gathered on the Johanna Ortiz-tented rooftop. Leonardo DiCaprio is surrounded by a posse—when is he not?—that at one point includes Ed Sheeran. (Matt Damon is also somewhere in my crowd, which makes me want to text my dad, because every dad loves Matt Damon.) Lewis Hamilton, Serena Williams, McCartney, and Karlie Kloss pose for the cameras together, setting off a furious succession of flashes that blinds everyone in the immediate radius.
I run into a party friend. This is different from a real friend: someone I text on a semi-frequent basis, go for dinner with, and actually listen to when they go on about moving apartments or something. A party friend, however, is someone you only see at a party and only talk about parties with.
So that’s what we are doing. “What do you think is going to be the best party?” He asks me. “I think this party is going to be pretty good,” I respond, waving in Leonardo DiCaprio’s general direction. He crinkles his nose. “A lot of people are still at Tom Ford.”
I’m caught off guard. I had no idea about Tom Ford—which isn’t great, as my whole job tonight is to know about things like Tom Ford. Worst of all, I’m too shitty a liar to even feign that I did. “I didn’t hear about that one,” I say sheepishly. I scan his expression for any hints of smugness.
There’s none. Tom Ford wasn’t meant to be a flex. Like so many others out tonight, he just wants to be at what I call the B.P.: the best party.
The B.P. is, first of all, almost impossible to get into. You spend a few days or even weeks trying to suss out who, exactly, you gotta talk to get invited to this. Then the email, or maybe the text comes through: you’re on the list. You may act like you always knew it was a sure thing. But deep down, some part of you feels a level of validation, like some social deity has finally issued a divine edict from the heavens above: I forever declare she’s cool!
When you get to the B.P., there’s always a crowd of people at the door. These people have come to the B.P. thinking that a bouncer will let them in because they are beautiful, well-dressed, or both. But that’s not enough to gain entry into B.P. To get into the B.P., you need to have a name worth dropping. Preferably, it’s yours. It can also be a close friend. (It cannot, however, be an acquaintance. Deep down, you’ll always know that you were a plus two or a plus three, and that your connection to this glamorous world was a thin, tenuous one.)
And when you finally do walk into the B.P,—with its cool room, cool music, and cool celebrities—every feeling of F.O.M.O, you evaporates. There’s no other place you’d rather be than right here, right now.
So I simply smile at him. “This is going to be so fun,” I say. I’m telling the truth. Stella McCartney knows how to throw a party, as does Juan Santa Cruz, the proprietor of Casa Cruz. It’s early, but already, I saw people migrating downstairs to the deejay. I give him a hug and head out on my way. Outside, they are handing out personal pizzas. I grab a box. Like for any marathon, it’s probably best if I carb-load.
Cardi B is hosting a party at Silencio, a new Midtown club designed by Harry Nuriev that feels like you’re in the red room from Twin Peaks. The gown I wore to the museum is way too formal for this, so I change into a slinky black Dolce Gabbana dress for the more raucous occasion.
A bouncer lets Larry, our friend Ian, and I glide past the red velvet rope. The music is blasting. Ian bumps into someone he knows who, from what I can tell, is saying something about a table. Is it her table? Her friend’s table? No clue, but suddenly I’m at it. A tequila shot is put in front of me and I throw it back. It does not go down well. Everyone dances while I slightly gag in a corner.
I can’t hear anything. People talk at me and I just keep saying, “That’s amazing.” I have no clue if what they’re saying is amazing.
After several minutes of shimmying to house music, it’s time for my next stop—it’s already 1 a.m. and I’ve still got 10 parties on my list. So Larry and I say our goodbyes to our party friends, hop in a car, and head downtown.
There’s a sizable crowd lingering outside the door of the Loewe party, which is hosted by the brand’s creative director Jonathan Anderson and film director Luca Guadagnino. (Loewe designed the costumes for Guadagnino’s zeitgeist-y movie Challengers, which I, and all of TikTok, are obsessed with. My “For You” page is basically just videos of that churros scene.)
Frankly, I’m impressed they even knew there was something here: the brand only confirmed where their party was 22 hours before it began. (Even then they didn’t name an actual place, just a street address in NoHo.)
I had tried to find out a lot earlier than that. After Lauren Santo Domingo posted on her Instagram story a week ago that Loewe was throwing an after-party that would be the one to go to, I sent a flurry of texts to figure out what, exactly, she was talking about. The only thing I got back were false leads and red herrings: It’s the Lower East Side. It’s Brooklyn. I don’t think it’s happening at all. Thankfully, my colleague Lilah Ramzi figured it out. She added my name to the list the Friday before. I fist-pumped in front of her at the office.
“Elise Taylor,” I say to a small army of iPad-wielding people at the door. They swipe and give the signal: She can come in.
The first person I see when I walk in is Josh O’Connor, looking every inch his Challengers character of Patrick Zweig in the mint green sweater he’s wearing. I feel a bizarre (and misplaced) sense of disappointment that his co-stars Mike Faist and Zendaya aren’t glued to his side. But they are here too: Faist is making his way through the crowd, while Zendaya is in deep conversation with Kaia Gerber. Gerber’s Bottoms co-star and friend-slash-Instagram troll, Ayo Edebiri, is also milling around. Meanwhile, Chloë Sevigny sits at a table… cooly. (I swear to you there’s no better adverb to use.) Jamie Dornan and his striped polo are back. Waiters pass around burgers and fries that are flying off their trays.
At the bar, Andrew Scott is joyfully lifting a woman in the air. I have no idea why, but everyone seems really excited about it, so I cheer along with them. (Later, I will learn this woman was Kylie Minogue.) While cheering, I accidentally bump into Kieran Culkin for the second time tonight. Phoebe Dynevor is on the dance floor, as is her Bridgerton co-star Jonathan Bailey, and damn are those two dynamic people. Everyone’s drawn to their energy, and suddenly, it seems like everyone is dancing alongside them in time. Including me—and I stay there for quite some time that I end up losing track of it entirely.
At some point, Larry is spinning me and we’re both laughing.
“Is this the best party?” he asks.
At this point, I’ve been to around 25 Met Gala afters. And let me tell you something: I’m not sure the B.P. actually exists. Some days, I just feel like party-chasing Ponce de Leon, searching in vain for an imaginary watering hole that I’ll never be able to quench my thirst with.
But in this moment, it feels like yes.
It’s well past 3 a.m. when Larry and I arrive at The Mulberry, an intimate bar in Nolita. They’re doing an informal after-party without a sponsor just for close friends and patrons. It sounds nice after the lavish, high-budget events we’ve come from. As we’re heading in, Christian Siriano, holding the massive train of Coco Rocha, is heading out. We have to step to the side to let them pass. As they do, my mind is suddenly occupied with a public transit earworm: “We are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us.”
We do one lap, but we can’t do any more than that. The New York bars close at 4 a.m. I know I’m not going to make all 14, or even 10. But I want to hit at least two more stops. So it’s back into the night for Larry and I.
FKA Twigs performed at the Top of the Standard—colloquially known as the Boom Boom Room—over an hour and a half ago. But I’m running on the delusion that New York is the city that never sleeps, and therefore, this party is still in full swing—liquor and noise laws be damned.
So that’s maybe why I miss the major sign that, when I walk up to the Boom Boom Room, there’s no one with an iPad. A person with an iPad is a person with a list. And a person with a list means there’s still a party that said people on the list can attend. Instead, there s just a well-suited bouncer who frankly, looks like he’s put up with a lot of shit tonight.
“Elise Taylor,” I say to him. He just gives a blank stare. “We’re not letting anyone up.”
“But I’m on the list.”
He waves his iPad-less hand. “I don’t have a list. The party ended.”
I’m not ready to admit defeat. I see a group of people heading up the elevator behind me and point.
“What about them?”
He looks back, confused. “Miss, they work here.”
“Oh.”
Larry and I lock eyes. I thank the bouncer for his time and, without a word, we start walking back to the car. Our party is finally over.
See All of the Celebrity Looks From the Met Gala 2024 Red Carpet:
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