Omar Apollo is having quite a year. Just over a month ago the 26 year old singer songwriter—whose birthday is later this month, by the way—was in the Lower East Side hosting the unveiling of the music video for his latest single, “Spite.” The plan was to throw the party inside the Le Père store on Orchard Street, but the turn-out was so large they had to move it outdoors. There was Apollo standing on a car, decked in a floor-length shearling coat, singing to his fans. That’s the kind of stuff most artists dream of. Today he crossed another thing off his bucket list: walking the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a guest at the 2024 Met Gala. “The Met is such a crazy cultural moment that I’ve witnessed for years,” said Apollo ahead of tonight, “getting invited to attend was really exciting. I look amazing.”
Amazing is right. Apollo is a Loewe ambassador, and has established a close working relationship with designer Jonathan Anderson and the brand, which is one of the sponsors of tonight’s festivities. Naturally, he wore a custom look by Loewe designer Jonathan Anderson. “This look is actually inspired by one in Loewe’s most recent womenswear collection,” said Apollo of his single-breasted wool jacket hand-embroidered with oversized bugle beads made from aluminum, a version of which walked Anderson’s fall 2024 ready-to-wear runway earlier this year. “Jonathan had shown me a preview of the collection a couple days before the show and I remember it standing out to me. So when we started conversations with Loewe for the Met and I reviewed the sketches from Jonathan, I immediately recognized the look and knew it was the one.”
To take things a step further, Apollo and his stylist, Brandon Tan, a GQ fashion editor, worked with Loewe to incorporate this year’s “The Garden of Time” dress code into the look. “Jonathan has incorporated floral elements in some of his previous collections, so we came back to the Loewe team to see how they could weave it into this look,” said Apollo. They ended up looking to another recent collection of Anderson’s, this time spring 2024 ready-to-wear, utilizing the crystal embellishments the designer created based on the work of the artist Lynda Bengalis. The flowers were spread through Apollo’s jacket lapels to delicately punctuate the craftsmanship of the beading.
This past Friday, Apollo attended Vogue’s pre-Met Gala party in a Yohji Yamamoto button-down dating back to 1996–yes, his shirt was older than him—featuring an intricate floral graphic. The dress code was “florals for spring,” which Apollo hewed to, just as he did tonight’s theme. Still, he and Tan are not those who overthink his looks. “I honestly didn’t have any references,” said Apollo about this 2024 Met Gala look, “just vibes.”
See All of the Celebrity Looks From the Met Gala 2024 Red Carpet:
Met Gala 2024: See Every Celebrity Arrival, Read the Latest Stories, and Get Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Here
