At this year's Met Gala, did anyone get the point?

The Met Gala is the biggest night in fashion, but it isn't just about who's wearing what.

The highly exclusive carpet is where, for the masses at least, fashion truly becomes art.

This year's star-studded fundraiser was co-chaired by Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth, and with a team like this combined with a theme like "The Garden of Time," expectations were running high.

Danya Issawi is a fashion news writer for The Cut based in New York. She attended a Met Gala after party. Gianluca Russo is a freelance fashion journalist based in Arizona. The morning after, Commotion host Elamin Abdelmahmoud talks with Danya and Gianluca about who went beyond florals, who missed the mark, and why the theme might have ultimately gone over everyone's heads.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Danya, why does the Met Gala matter so much?

Danya: I think it's one of those rare events where you kind of pluck all of these people from this ether of the zeitgeist and put them all in one room. Baz Luhrman once called it an aquarium, and I think that's accurate. You have athletes, you have directors, you have movie stars, you have models, you have designers — you have all these people that are culturally significant in their own way, all together on the red carpet. So the [amount of ] eyeballs that you're drawing in is just massive.

Elamin: Gianluca, what's your read on why the Met Gala matters so much?

Gianluca: I would say it also really shows you who's leading this cultural moment around fashion right now, and who's kind of following it. I think a lot of times we see that the celebrities who will follow — it's very clear that they're just there to have fun. And then you see the ones who are really there to either make a statement or to really make their name known, or make their mark on fashion known. And so I think that was always exciting about it for me, getting to see who is really going to lead the way into this next era of fashion.

Elamin: Danya, let's talk about the theme. So the theme, The Garden of Time, this is not just a word salad. It's a specific reference to a novel. Let's talk about what that inspiration for that theme is, and also how people interpreted that theme.

Danya: So the inspiration for the theme, it was a bit convoluted because the exhibit itself was Sleeping Beauties, and then the dress code was Garden of Time, and that's based on a J.G. Ballard story about this wealthy count and countess who hide themselves away in their beautiful, extravagant villa as a mob approaches their castle, essentially. And the only way to keep the mob at bay is to pluck a crystal flower every day that turns back time, and eventually they run out of flowers, and so on.

I thought the theme was really interesting, especially given the point of time that we're in. I was outside covering the protests at the Met Gala, and the juxtaposition and the irony of a bunch of rich people inside the Met Gala and their outfits was definitely apparent. But everybody on the red carpet was like, "Florals. That's what we're going to go with today." Everybody went with the garden theme.

Elamin: I'm interested in this idea … of this very rich couple who are trying to hide behind their wealth as much as they can as this mob is approaching their house and they say, "You've isolated yourself away with your wealth." That has always been the criticism of the Met Gala. So to see them engage with it, at least thematically, is kind of interesting. But then to see that kind of manifest when you see a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Met, they're audible as you are watching the red carpet — what did you make of that juxtaposition?

Danya: I think the irony was lost on a lot of people. As you said, this is a criticism time and time again of the Met Gala, and I'm curious if the people who set that theme even took into account this might be a little too on the nose here.

Elamin: Gianluca, what's your read on this idea that the Met Gala in choosing that theme is at least alluding to engaging with this longstanding criticism of the Met Gala, but then you get to the actual night and no one there is actually willing to engage with the reality?

Gianluca: I think fashion, quite frankly, is often ignorant of its place in society, and so I think that is a very clear picture of ignorance right there: you pick that theme and then not really acknowledge it at all throughout the evening, especially given what's going on in the world right now. But that's very kind of on par with how fashion operates.

I would say I was surprised we didn't see more conversation happen last night around these topics. It was a little surprising to me because in the past few years, we've seen a lot more cultural and political conversations happen on the carpet of the Met Gala.… It felt like a very weird kind of moment.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show, where the panel discusses whose looks were on theme and who missed the mark at last night's Met Gala, on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.