Of Course “Priscilla” Star Cailee Spaeny Wore Miu Miu to Her First Met Gala

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Two seasons ago in Paris, I sat at the Miu Miu Spring 2024 show. And right before the final look came out, the room went still. The model walking down the runway, holding a long navy Miu Miu cape with one hand pressed up against her chest, was noticeably shorter than anyone who’d walked before her, at just five foot one. Everyone around me tapped their seatmates’ shoulders and exchanged glances before whispering under their breath, “Who is that?”

A couple of weeks later, I would see the same model in front of me on the screen of my local movie theater—but this time, she was playing Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, instead of wearing next season’s Miu Miu. Most people don’t happen to close a fashion show before their breakout film comes out, but Cailee Spaeny did.

I mention this to Spaeny over the phone, a few hours before she is about to walk her first-ever Met Gala carpet, and she squeals with glee. “No one told me that I was closing the show!” she tells me. She takes an excited breath before continuing. “I got a call that they wanted me to join the show! And I was just like, ‘Wait, are you sure? I don’t even know where to begin with this! Or how to walk?’ And then they said, ‘Yeah, you’re our little surprise at the end!’ ”

Last night in New York, Spaeny worked with the brand on another first at the Met Gala. She actually chose her look for the annual fashion event after the Miu Miu Fall 2024 show, which she attended as a guest in February. The brand’s team had shown her some sketches, but only one dress instantly clicked with her and her stylist, Nicky Yates.

“When we saw the one, I think we just looked at each other, and we just knew!” Spaeny says. “You just know when you know! And it really felt like me! It felt like the perfect first Met look. And it was just ultra chic. The silhouette was just gorgeous. I thought the detailing was perfect.”

Around noon yesterday, she decided to take a walk in Central Park, to calm her nerves before the evening began. She stumbled upon the Museum of Metropolitan Art. “And I saw people already waiting outside, getting handed pieces of the red carpet!” That didn’t really calm her nerves—“If anything, it made me more nervous!”—but knowing she would soon be slipping into a Miu Miu dress that really felt like her did help soothe her anxiety. She attributes that to having worked with the label for so long, for a handful of career milestones. “I was probably 19 or 20 years old on my first carpet wearing Miu Miu,” says the Civil War star, now 25, “and then getting to go with them tonight to the party of the year … it’s really special.”

When I mention having already seen a preview of the museum’s Costume Institute’s spring exhibit, Spaeny chimes in, “I read that there’s something called, like, ‘ghost dust’ in terms of how they preserve the pieces?” Aside from discovering how the Met preserved archival garments, she says she is excited to unplug. “Well, we all know about the no-phone policy! And I sort of love that! It’s all about taking in the moment and staying present. And I think it’s a real reminder, especially in times like these, that you don’t get so caught up in what people are going to think and how you look and who’s going to be there. It’s so nice to just sort of be present with these people that you respect and get to celebrate these things.”

And while Spaeny says she sort of blacked out while walking her first runway, she tells me she’s excited to hopefully really sit in the moment at the Met Gala and enjoy it. “It’s such an interesting life experience,” she says. “I mean, I get to twirl around in a nice dress and have some drinks—it doesn’t sound too bad!”

While I wasn’t there last night, I feel confident saying that while Spaeny was twirling in her Miu Miu gown, drink in hand, no one around her was looking on, thinking, Who is that?

Instead, someone was probably looking on, thinking: There’s Cailee again in Miu Miu. Because at this point, it feels like a given.

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