A recreation of the “Veiled Woman”. A “live” version of John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait of Madame X”. Claude Monet’s lilies on a gown. This year’s theme for the Met Gala was “Fashion is art”. But neither fashion nor art seems to have gotten the memo. The one non-negotiable criterion for something to be called a “work of art” is the originality of thought behind it. Most of the Gala was anything but. When Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the museum’s Costume Institute, announced the theme, he had expressed concerns that it may be interpreted “too literally”. Bolton’s fears materialised on the iconic steps when celebrities served looks that recalled works of art — ancient/contemporary — and too conspicuously.

Lauren Sanchez Bezos, Jeff Bezos’s wife and the honorary chair, turned up at the mega fashion event as “Madame X” from Singer Sargent’s iconic 1884 portrait of a young socialite. The look wasn’t inspired. It was a replica, barring the hairdo. Bezos let her hair down as she did the nuanced theme. Then, there was Jessica Kayll. In perhaps one of the laziest interpretations in the history of the Met Gala, Kayll painted Monet’s lilies on her gown. The fact that she is a designer and a textile artist makes the costume that much more blasphemous.

Raja Ravi Varma is the flavour of the season in India — one of his paintings is now India’s most expensive work — and both Karan Johar and Isha........

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