Cardi B has arrived at the 2023 Met Gala! The Grammy-winning rapper, 30, walked the New York City carpet on May 1 in a collared black and white ball gown that was accented with a black silk tie by Chenpeng Studio. Her quilted bodice was bejeweled with pearls and her skirt was covered in Chanel’s signature camelia flowers. She finished off her look, which was designed to match this year’s theme, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty,” (an ode to the late and great Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld), with a black velvet headband and black opera-style gloves.
Cardi put a great deal of thought into her 2023 ensemble, which she described while chatting with red-carpet correspondent La La Anthony. “[This is] from a designer called Chenpeng … It’s giving a little bit of everything,” she began. “If you see, like, the texture of this skirt, it’s giving like a Chanel Boy Bag. And then it got the flowers, the camelia flowers … and then up top here is giving Karl. So I’m representing the house of Chanel and Karl at the same time.” And you did it beautifully, Cardi!
Cardi B tonight being interviewed at the #MetGala 😍 pic.twitter.com/mmq0VzRt7S
— Cardi B | Updates (@updatesofcardi) May 2, 2023
Cardi shined on the red carpet not only for her stunning outfit, but because she used some of the finest skin products to prep her look. She started off with Murad‘s Daily Defense Colloidal Oatmeal Cream, then restored moisture with the Hydrating Toner. Finally, she rejuvenated her under-eye with the Retinol Youth Renewal Eye Serum. “The inspiration for Cardi’s glam look tonight was to showcase and give nod to Fashion. Cardi always embodies not only elegance but her own unconventional sense of style,” Cardi’s makeup artist, Erika La’Pearl, said in a press release obtained by HollywoodLife.
But wait, there’s more! Before the “Wap” rapper hit the red carpet, she stunned in a pink custom gown by Miss Sohee as she left her hotel. The fitted bodice was bedazzled with rhinestones and her tulle backing complemented her skin tone beautifully. Her added beads on her forehead and around her neck made her dazzle even more. Slay all night, Cardi!
Cardi’s appearance on the famous steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art follows a show-stopping entrance in 2022. She took the “Gilded Glamour” theme quite seriously and showed up in an elaborate Atelier Versace gown that was composed of layers of shimmering gold chains and Versace Greca embellishments. She also wore a super thick necklace composed of dozens of chains that reached from her upper chest to the top of her neck. The detailed dress required a team of 20 people and took approximately 1,300 hours to complete, according to a press release from Versace (via Billboard). If the chains were laid out in a line, it would span for one mile. Now that’s a lot of material!
Cardi’s 2022 Met Gala attendance marked her first time there since 2019. That year, she donned a feather-covered Thom Browne gown for the “camp” theme. The fitted maroon dress covered her from head-to-toe with 30,000 burned and dyed coque feathers, per Glamour. The gown, which featured a massive skirt, utilized 35 people to create and took more than 2,000. Unsurprisingly, the gown plus the Stefere jewerly that went with it, cost a solid $200,000.
While the feathered dress was completely epic, it definitely wasn’t the first time that “Bodack Yellow” hitmaker had stunned as she arrived at the Met Gala. For the 2018 “Heavenly Bodies” theme, Cardi was absolutely glowing, as she was pregnant with her daughter Kulture Kiari Cephus, now 4, in a cream-colored dress with gems bedazzled on the front. The outfit was designed by her friend Jeremy Scott. She looked like a fashionable goddess as she sported a matching headdress. Cardi looked back on her first Met Gala in a 2020 interview with Vogue. “When you see my look, I feel like you don’t just see a pregnant woman,” she said. “I feel like you see royal-goddess-woman-motherhood.”
A few things have changed for Cardi since her first Met Gala. Not only did she welcome her first child with her husband, Offset, in 2018, but she also gave birth to their second child, a son named Wave, in Sept. 2021. Wave’s birth made Cardi a mom for the second time, and Offset a father for the fifth time. She is also expected to put an album out this year, which would be her first since 2018’s Invasion of Privacy.