Law Roach reveals Zendaya’s Met Gala dress hasn’t been made yet

The 2024 Met Gala is just days away, but it seems that its biggest star has yet to even do a final fitting.

The annual Met Gala takes place on Monday 6 May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In addition to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez, and Zendaya will serve as co-chairs for the evening.

This year’s event marks Zendaya’s return to the Met Gala red carpet for the first time in five years. The Challengers star is expected to make a major splash with her outfit choice, considering she’s been praised as one of the few guests to perfectly capture each year’s dress code. However, according to the actor’s longtime friend and stylist Law Roach, her Met Gala dress hasn’t been made yet.

In a new interview with The New York Times published on 2 May, the fashion icon revealed that he hasn’t even seen the outfit Zendaya will be wearing to the Met Gala. “I haven’t seen Zendaya’s dress! We’ve been on two press tours - Dune 2 and Challengers - and doing two Vogue covers,” Roach said, referring to Zendaya’s simultaneous cover shoots for American Vogue and British Vogue this month.

“The dress isn’t even made. They won’t fit until Saturday,” he added.

Roach has been styling the Disney Channel alum since she was just 14 years old, and previously revealed that no one would even lend Zendaya clothes at the start of her career. These days, the collaborators have turned heads for the Emmy winner’s themed press tour looks, such as her vintage Mugler robot suit for the Dune: Part Two premiere in London and her tenniscore ensembles while promoting Challengers.

While Roach devastated fashion lovers everywhere when he announced he was “retired” from styling celebrities in March 2023, he’s continued to work with major names like Celine Dion - prompting speculation of whether he’s actually retired.

“I’m the most unretired retired person,” Roach told the outlet, in response to the speculation. “But everything I’m doing now is on my own terms. I’ve been saying no to a lot of unhappy people. Except Zendaya. I can’t say no to her.”

The stylist admitted that he and the Euphoria star refer to each other as their “fashion soulmates” and described their working relationship as “big ideas, small details”.

Roach continued: “It’s like, I write the script, and she does the rewrites. Not saying that we don’t argue, because we do, and we fight over things. But I know my place. I know she’s the boss, and she also has enough respect for me and love for me to let me be the boss sometimes.”

As for Zendaya, she recently opened up about why it can be “terrifying” to attend the Met Gala. While appearing on Live with Kelly and Mark, the 27-year-old producer recalled her first time walking the Met Gala red carpet when she was just 18.

“I first went when I was 18 years old, and Law [Roach] and I, my stylist, we’ve been working together since I was like 14 years old. But I remember being 18 and it was such an exciting and new experience,” she told co-hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. “But still terrifying.”

She added that “going up the steps” of the Metropolitan Museum of Art can be “very daunting” and emphasised that this year will be her “first time back at the Met in quite a while”.

The theme for this year’s Met Gala is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”. The fashion extravaganza coincides with the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual exhibit, which will be centred around 50 historically significant pieces of fashion - some too fragile ever to be worn again. Nearly 250 items will be drawn from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection, featuring designs from Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, and Givenchy to span 400 years of fashion history.

The exhibition will be focused on three main zones: land, sea, and sky. Each “zone” will symbolise the natural materials used within it to create garments. By emphasising the natural world and how its been used in fashion throughout time, sustainability will remain a key focus throughout the exhibit.

Attendees are encouraged to follow the Met Gala’s dress code, loosely labelled “The Garden of Time”. The dress code takes inspiration from a short story of the same title, written by JG Ballard in 1962, which focuses on the theme of fleeting beauty. Met Gala guests can embrace the obvious by wearing florals to represent an actual garden, or wear items that signify the passing of time.