How Keeley Hawes Got Ready for the 2024 Met Gala
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Keeley Hawes is no stranger to glamorous nights. The actress, who recently starred in the film Scoop (streaming now on Netflix) and will soon appear in the series Orphan Black: Echoes, is a three-time BAFTA TV Award nominee who’s married to Emmy winner Matthew Macfadyen, which is to say, they get out now and again.
“We’ve been lucky enough to go to awards shows and those sorts of exciting evenings, but the difference is when you’re lucky enough to be up for an award—or be with your husband who’s up for an award—there’s a level of terror that’s hard to get away from,” Hawes says. “Going to an event like the Met Gala has the same sort of excitement, but without any of the fear.”
For her very first Met Gala, Hawes was a guest of Marc Jacobs, who designed the gown she wore in collaboration with artist Brandy Kraft. “Everyone at Marc Jacobs has been so kind in offering options for me to wear,” Hawes says, “and choosing the dress was a painless process.”
Not quite as simple? Preparing for the event. Hawes and her husband came to New York from London the day before, and she invited Town & Country and photographer Jessica "Yeya" Chávez along to see her get ready for the evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which serves not only as a glamorous gala but also a fundraiser for the museum’s Costume Institute and a celebration of its latest exhibition, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. Here’s how it went.
"We are going as guests of Marc Jacobs and my stylist, Maya Zepinic, pulled together a selection of things. The Marc Jacobs gown that we chose is so beautiful. It’s taffeta and was created in collaboration with an artist named Brandy Kraft, who’s American but lives in Sweden. She works in oils and glass and uses themes of florals, so it feels very modern and has these beautiful flowers on it."
"I almost always work with the makeup artist Justine Jenkins, and we’ve created a look to go with the dress. I’ve been so excited by the looks that she has come up with, which include a shimmery lilac eye kind of based on the flowers in J.G. Ballard’s The Garden of Time, which shimmer before they’re extinguished. It feels very spring like. Ben Cooke also does a marvelous job with my hair."
"I’m wearing Jimmy Choo platforms, which are so comfortable. I’m very tall, and these are tall even for me. For the first time ever, I’m going to be taller than my husband."
"And my jewelry, which is so pretty and delicate, is from L'Atelier Nawbar."
"We’re in New York just for the Met Gala, so we’re staying in a hotel. I’ll go and have a steam and relax in the spa and then start getting ready at about lunch time. It’s quite a long process, and then we’ll leave around six. The whole day becomes quite an event, so we’ll have people come over and have a glass of champagne. It feels a bit like getting ready for your wedding day."
"While we get ready, I ask my husband to play some music on his Spotify. We put some music on in the hotel room, something from the ’80s or ’90s, which is always fun to listen to when you’re getting ready. It’s good to choose something that will keep everybody happy."
"It takes me six hours to get ready, and it takes my husband about 20 minutes. He’ll go for the gym, he’ll go out for a walk, he’ll keep himself very busy and then we’ll join up with about half an hour to go."
"It's always exciting to go to these things and then tell your children who you’ve seen. Someone like Dua Lipa would really impress them; you get a lot of points when you meet someone they’re crazy about. The spectacle of the whole evening will be very nice in general. Josh O’Connor is going, and I haven’t seen him in a bit, so it’ll be lovely to catch up, but I’m also hoping to be surprised."
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