The Psychology of The Met Gala

Every year, on the first Monday of May, something extraordinary happens. 450 of the world's most powerful, most beautiful, most photographed people climb a set of steps in Manhattan — and the internet collectively loses it’s mind.

The Met Gala is billed as an exclusive charity fundraiser where tickets cost seventy-five thousand dollars. And yet somehow, it reaches billions of people sat at home in their tracksuits, who have never been within a mile of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So, what’s going on? What does fashion communicate? Why do we feel so entitled to judge a celebs outfit? Why does a look that ‘understood the assignment’ give us a little hit of dopamine, while one that ‘played it safe’ feels like a personal disappointment?

With me to discuss the psychology of the Met Gala and fashion is Professor Carolyn Mair, a cognitive psychologist and author of The Psychology of Fashion.

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You can buy Carolyn's book, The Psychology of Fashion here >> https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Fashion/Mair/p/book/9781032712529

And follow Carolyn on Instagram here >>  https://www.instagram.com/psychologyforfashion/

You can watch the video of this episode on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@EverythingsPsychology

Transcript

Paul Davies (00:05)
Hello and welcome to Everything Psychology. Every year on the first Monday of May, something extraordinary happens. 450 of the world's most powerful, most beautiful, most photographed people climb a set of steps in Manhattan, and the internet collectively loses its mind. 

The Met Gala is billed as an exclusive charity fundraiser where tickets cost $75,000. And yet, somehow, it reaches billions of people sat at home in their tracksuits who have never been within a mile of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So what's going on? What does fashion communicate? Why do we feel so entitled to judge a celebrity's outfit? And why does a look that understood the assignment give us a little hit of dopamine, while one that played it safe feels like a personal disappointment? 

With me to discuss the psychology of the Met Gala and fashion is Professor Carolyn Mayer, a cognitive psychologist and author of The Psychology of Fashion. Hello Carolyn.

Carolyn Mair (01:18)
Hello, Paul.

Paul Davies (01:20)
I'm really interested to start with, when you watch The Met Gala, can you actually enjoy it as a spectator, or is your psychologist's analytical gaze just turned up to 11?

Carolyn Mair (01:33)
⁓ that's a great question. ⁓ I think it's both simultaneously. So I love watching it. I love fashion. I love the creativity of a, of a beautiful piece, a beautiful item, ⁓ that's worn, but I can't take away the human perspective, the perception of what's going on there. And as a psychologist, I'm really interested in what, what created the

the influence to make that wearer wear that garment. What were they trying to show through what they're wearing? And last night's gala is particularly interesting because the title of Fashion as Art, and I think that is super interesting. But fashion in itself always communicates something, and I can't switch that off. Perception is active. It's working all the time, making sense of the world.

When I watch the gala I'm intrigued and fascinated by the clothing but also intrigued and fascinated by what's going on beyond that in the wearer.

Paul Davies (02:44)
Yeah, and I suppose even as you walk down the street, is it the same for you?

Carolyn Mair (02:51)
Sometimes, sometimes it is, sometimes I have something more pressing on my mind that I'm not too concerned. But, you know, with attention, something captures my attention, a particularly striking outfit or something very unusual. But what you tend to see in a high street situation normally is people dressed very, similarly. And it's quite unusual.

Paul Davies (02:56)
You

Carolyn Mair (03:18)
despite how many clothes we have, how much we spend on fashion, most people tend to wear the same things on a high street and we dress up more, more individually for particular events. So probably walking down the street, not that much.

Paul Davies (03:32)
And I think.

Yeah, I can see that. And watching last night, I mean, you could see the uniqueness. I mean, my goodness. And as you said, the theme for last night's event was fashion is art. And we had people dressing up as paintings, Grecian urns, a blood spatter. I mean, it was very unusual and unique. But I did make me think, is fashion art?

Carolyn Mair (04:02)
I think that's a super interesting question. think fashion is different to art. It can be art, but it is different to art in the way that art, they're both creative, but that art is created to make an impression, to make us think. Whereas fashion is our second skin, fashion is next to our bodies. We actually feel fashion. We feel...

the art, you like, the creativity that we're wearing. So I think it can be described as beyond art in some senses, but also art in another. I describing and defining art is very broad anyway. So fashion is certainly art in terms of creativity, but in terms of wearable pieces, it takes on another aspect.

it takes on the human element, the person inside that art piece. So for me, it's both different and possibly more than art.

Paul Davies (05:12)
Okay, and you mentioned there the second skin and now reading your book, The Psychology of Fashion, I was really sort fascinated by that. Why does it matter so much on an everyday basis what we wear?

Carolyn Mair (05:27)
⁓ I mean, so many reasons. One, what we wear portrays our identity. And whether we really think about it, you know, whether we just throw on the first thing that comes out of our wardrobe in the morning, we still wear clothes and those clothes say something about us. They communicate to other people. so using fashion as a tool to present ourselves in a way that we want to be.

recognised and portrayed is very important. So why is fashion our second skin? It portrays our identity. It allows us to negotiate our position in the world. It allows us to show our allegiance to particular social groups and it allows us to show disassociation between social groups we do not wish to be aligned with, that we want to separate ourselves from.

And this is key that fashion can do this so well. ⁓ It's an instant form of communication.

Paul Davies (06:35)
how much of that is conscious versus unconscious.

Carolyn Mair (06:39)
lot of our decisions, most of our decisions, the majority of our decisions in fact, are made unconsciously, very, very quickly before attention kicks in. So attention is the gatekeeper between unconscious and conscious processing. So in an instant, we've made a judgement about a person. The first impression is super fast, under a second.

We make a judgement, we fill in gaps in information, we very few cues just based on appearance alone. We fill in these gaps with assumptions based on previous experience, socialisation, peer pressure, social groups we belong to or aspire to belong to. And from that we make judgements about people. So how much difficult to say but research suggests that 90 % or there about more or less of our decisions are

quick snap decisions, Daniel Kahneman says system one thinking are unconscious and it takes attention to bring those unconscious decisions, thoughts, cognitions to conscious attention so that we can actually analyse them and begin to perhaps challenge them and think more carefully about them. We don't do that so much.

Paul Davies (08:00)
Yeah. And does that still hold though when we're talking about the Met Gala? Where people are parading around in... Sabrina Carpenter last night was in 35mm film strips covered in a film called Sabrina. There was Ananya Burla who was wearing a mask made of kitchen utensils. Does it change when it comes high fashion like that?

Carolyn Mair (08:25)
Well, we already have perceptions about these celebrities if we know them. We've already made judgments about them. ⁓ But if we don't know the person, whether it's a celebrity or another individual, those judgments are based on very little information. So we might already be familiar with Sabrina Carpenter in the film called Sabrina. Then we bring those judgments to the judgment we're going to make about her.

covered from head to toe in film, a film called Sabrina, which is quite interesting in itself, very interesting in itself. Very nicely done, it's like a meta, a meta fashion as art. So... ⁓

Paul Davies (09:00)
Yeah, it's nicely done, yeah.

Yeah, you had

to really squint at it, but you could see that the titles on the film said Sabrina in it, yeah.

Carolyn Mair (09:13)
Yeah, I mean that's interesting. ⁓ Some people who don't know her and are not familiar with her personality and what she does, how she's a celebrity, may consider somebody covered in material, whether it's film or something else with their name on it, we might think they're narcissistic.

Paul Davies (09:34)
Very good point. I mean, if we're walking down the high street, we probably would, on the red carpet at the Met Gala. I mean, is she signalling? Is she gaining attention? Or is it... Because we've got that sort of different dynamic, haven't we? Because there's the fashion house who is gaining attention, the designer who's gaining attention. Is she really gaining attention or is she pretty much a walking mannequin?

Carolyn Mair (09:58)
it's both because I assume, and I don't know this for a fact, but I assume that there was a negotiation between the celebrity and the designer. So perhaps the designer makes a suggestion and the celebrity negotiates with that suggestion. But of course, the designer is the artist here. In a way, the designer is the artist.

Paul Davies (10:22)
Yes.

Carolyn Mair (10:25)
behind the celebrity artist's clothing. I imagine it's negotiation. And that will be affected by the designer's perceptions, impressions, affiliation with that celebrity. So, you know, there's lots going on here.

Paul Davies (10:46)
And does that translate back down onto the high street again? Not in the same way, because the designer doesn't design for individuals like that. But when somebody wears designer wear, like you say, they're affiliating themselves to a brand ⁓ or a logo or something like that. Are they again having that relationship with the fashion house and signaling?

Carolyn Mair (11:11)
Yes, absolutely. So when we align with a brand, it could be a movement, let's, a brand is a kind of movement. When we align with that, when we show that in our clothing, it signals to other people that we have the same values as that brand. We might not have, but that's what we're trying to portray. We might not belong to that brand or that in-group as such.

but we may aspire to do so and we are projecting that. But the interesting thing here about the psychology of fashion is that the interpretation of what we wear may not be as intended because for someone to know about the values of that brand, that designer house, we have to be familiar with that. So fashion is a form of communication and like any language,

If we're not fluent in that language, we're not going to be able to understand it in the way intended. So we may be able to pick out bits. We may know that something is higher quality than another, but we may not really understand the actual intricate values of that brand that the wearer is trying to portray.

Paul Davies (12:31)
Yes. And that reminds me again, going back to the Met Gala. I watched it was Angela Bassett who came up the steps and I thought, that's a nice dress in my simplistic way of looking at things. I thought she's wearing a very nice dress. I didn't know that who designed it. And when she got to the top, she was interviewed and she told people about it. And she said, actually, it's based on a painting by Laura Wheeler wearing.

and it's called The Girl in the Pink Dress. And The Girl in the Pink Dress is, ⁓ and the artist, is ⁓ from the history of America and slave America, and she's wearing this beautiful pink dress. And for Angela Bassett, that was a narrative which she wanted to promote and push. And when she told the story, I got it. And that added something to it. Previously, I just thought, that's a nice pink dress.

Carolyn Mair (13:27)
Absolutely. And that illustrates the point very, very clearly that if we're not fluent in that language and perhaps people who are familiar with the artist and the history, I think, you know, we're all familiar with the history, I hope. But having that element, that is powerful. This is when fashion becomes super powerful. Having the story, the symbolism of that.

and wearing that symbolism with pride. You would wear that with pride, with that story. You were showing a celebrity in the Met Gala, one of fashion's biggest events in the world, and showing the story how far we've come in some senses, but also illustrating that history that that must not be forgotten.

Paul Davies (14:19)
Yeah. And again, switching back to the high street again, you talked about that misinterpretation that just because you know it doesn't mean somebody else knows it also. And so when you're wearing something like Adidas, you might be thinking, well, it's because of the team I support or the athlete who is sponsored by and therefore I want to affiliate myself. Somebody else may have a very different judgment and

Carolyn Mair (14:26)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Davies (14:48)
a connection to that brand, and obviously any brand, which turns that on its head. So is there a of ⁓ a signalling miscommunication that can happen between fashions?

Carolyn Mair (15:01)
Absolutely, absolutely. And it's almost tribal. So we might have your example of Adidas versus Nike. You know, they have different values, both sport brands, both, you know, very, very ⁓ high level popular brands, very both on trend. But the people who are to align themselves with one of those brands will not align themselves with another.

So typically if we see someone wearing Nike trainers, they're not going to have an Adidas top on unless they're not that bothered, unless they're not familiar with it and they just like the trainers and they like the top. So none of this is black and

Paul Davies (15:41)
Yes.

Carolyn Mair (15:46)
as you know.

Paul Davies (15:46)
So can it even

be dangerous? Can you get so affiliated that you form a tribe, like the brown eyes, blue eyes studies, like Robbers Cave studies in psychology, which actually form a tribe which is so strong that you start to alienate others who don't fall into that same tribe?

Carolyn Mair (16:07)
Well yes, absolutely and so many studies in social psychology are focused on in-groups and out-groups. And when we belong to a group, this is our in-group, we place high value on that group and in doing so we can really be quite ⁓ detrimental to other groups and we feel superior to other groups.

And we can denigrate other groups as feeling, and that doesn't only apply in fashion, that applies to the other groups that we might belong to. So we feel a bit of coherence with that group. We feel that that group is superior than any other group. And clothing shows that very quickly. I spoke about that, I think earlier, where we said, know, clothing allows us to portray our identity and our allegiance.

to the groups we either belong to or aspire to belong to. Absolutely. And then someone wearing Chanel would believe, I imagine, that their appearance is better, or they are better even, than people who are wearing another luxury brand.

Paul Davies (17:23)
So where

does this come from? It feels like it has some sort of evolutionary foundation to this. Why do we form these in-groups, out-groups, I guess signal that in something as transient as fashion?

Carolyn Mair (17:39)
Well, because we make decisions very quickly based on minimal information and we fill in the gaps. from evolutionary psychology, it's about survival. So when we see another person, we need to survive. We need to know if we can survive. Are they safe? Are they approachable? Will they hurt us or will they be good for us? And this is how our judgments are formed. We haven't really caught up.

beyond this. So we make these judgments, first impressions in under a second, in a matter of milliseconds, and those are formed on very, very superfluous ⁓ visual aspects. And we process those in under a second, and then we hang all sorts of other information on that, information we can't see, such as personality and other characteristics. Are these people honest? Are they intelligent?

Are they successful? Do they have a prestigious job? Are they capable, competent? All these things hanging on this, and I say superfluous in its absolute meaning, on top visual aspects of a person. So yeah, you know, it comes from an evolutionary perspective really. Are they approachable? Are they good? Or are they going to hurt us?

Paul Davies (19:04)
going back to the Met Gala again,

One outfit that grabbed my attention was Tyler, who came in a custom Valentino dress inspired by peacocks. And the reason that got my attention as a psychologist was because peacocks are often used to describe ⁓ costly signalling theory. Could you explain briefly what costly signalling theory is and is it relevant to fashion?

Carolyn Mair (19:29)
Yeah, so it's like peacocking. ⁓ When a peacock spreads its tail feathers, it gives a beautiful display that takes up space, that is so stunning, so beautiful, that our eyes are attracted to it. And so when somebody wears a costume that is unique, designed for them, they are peacocking in a way.

and showing that they are important, powerful, a real celebrity, a real status in this, possibly the most highly regarded celebrity at the Met. However, not knowing this theory, Tyler might have just thought peacocks are beautiful, which they are,

Paul Davies (20:19)
Of course, it could be as simple as that.

Carolyn Mair (20:21)
So there are ways perhaps she wasn't familiar with the theory. But nevertheless, the hidden story there, the hidden meaning for those who are familiar with it, that will be showing that her sense, she wanted to portray uniqueness, power, ⁓ strength, really

An attention grabbing costume that is really going to stop people in their tracks, just like a peacock does when it spreads its feathers.

Paul Davies (20:56)
Yeah, yeah. In your book, you describe the tension in fashion between identification, and you've mentioned this earlier, between identification, that wanting to belong and differentiation, that wanting to be unique. Could you just go into that a little bit more?

Carolyn Mair (21:13)
Yes, wanting to belong, so using fashion in a way to belong is to wear clothes that are identifiable to as a particular brand or as a group or as your social group. So for example, your friendship group, you see adolescents quite often dressed very, very similarly in groups. ⁓ This

differentiates the person, a wearer, from those who are dressed differently. And this allows us to differentiate ourselves. Clothing is very, powerful tool to do this. So if we want to dress in a way that aligns with a brand, let's say a sports brand, we want to look sporty, we want to look...

We're going to go with a high fashion sports brand. Whereas if we want to look professional, we would wear a business suit or business casual. We dress in a different way. So we're differentiating ourselves from a group. But fashion allows us to do both simultaneously. It allows us to both belong and stand out at the same time because our audience is

always going to be part of the group that understands it and part of the differentiated groups that don't. But we know, we know we're not part of that group and we know that the group we want to belong to and we want to aspire to and we can see this of the people attending the Met rather than the models they have in the model show at the Met. The people attending the Met

Of course, they're all celebrities, but some less celebrity status than others. They all try very, very hard to show their allegiance to fashion, high fashion, but also their differentiation from each other. And I imagine they wouldn't be too thrilled if someone else turned up in exactly the same dress.

Paul Davies (23:32)
that would be a faux pas, wouldn't it? If

two people turned up in Beyonce's silver gown. Yeah, that would get the news.

And so, just distilling what you said, is it because we signal then to the people we wish to signal? So therefore, explaining groups like emo fashion or punk fashion, know, mod fashion, we are communicating to our group that we're with them, while simultaneously communicating that we're not with the other group.

Carolyn Mair (24:04)
Absolutely, absolutely. And those things stay with us. I mean, you mentioned sort of fashion tribes from decades ago, but at events that are, they have punk bands or play soul music for mod fans from, I don't know, 50 years ago, maybe more. People still dress in that way to go to the events to show how cool they are because they...

They are showing their authenticity of not only loving the music, but loving the fashion that went with the music.

Paul Davies (24:42)
we talk about celebrities as role models around fashion in particular. They are wearing, what are they wearing? There are magazines dedicated to what the celebrities are wearing. But there's a darker side as well. And your book discusses sort of

the documented harm that fashion imagery can do to body image, self-esteem. Does the Met Gala perpetuate that harm, do feel, or is it championing positive body image?

Carolyn Mair (25:11)
⁓ this is a big question. Body image is so important to us in our lives, not just at the moment, and it's not just about how we look, but it's how we show up to other people, how we communicate, and how we are at work, at school. It's about having confidence and belief in ourselves and absolutely the fashion industry.

has a lot of responsibility for promoting and also harming body image through their representation of the bodies that they show. So a couple of decades ago, we were moving towards more body inclusivity. And then we, about a decade ago, we did see more body positivity and we've seen more of that on social media.

But more recently, we have gone back to the very, very thin models, which is absolutely harmful for people's body image. And the models themselves, and it's documented, the models themselves are told to ⁓ thin down to the bone, to eat less, to lose weight. And even when they do all those things and show up at the agencies later on, they're told they're still not thin enough.

Not all models, obviously, and not all agencies, but this is documented and it has happened. And now we're back to very, very skinny models. But I have to say, returning to your question of the Met, so the Met had some body diversity this year. The Met showed some models with different bodies, different types of bodies. ⁓ And that is absolutely vital.

important, I can't stress this enough, how important it is to have people who are differently abled, so people from the disabled communities, people with different skin tones and we're seeing this increasingly, but people of different ages, people of different abilities, all sorts of things that people are that represent humans.

You know, we're not all, for women, we're not all, you know, six feet tall and why, goodness knows what, seven stone. Sorry, I'm old fashioned, not in the Imperial, not in the metric. have to work it out. Yes, size double zero. Most people are not that, most women are not that, and most men are not either very, very thin, very young, or very ripped and muscly.

Paul Davies (27:48)
No, that's fine. I'm with you, yeah.

Carolyn Mair (28:04)
You know, and this causes problems across genders,

not liking themselves. And there are studies that show that women, 99 % of women would change at least one part of their body. And in another study about men, many men, and I can't remember the exact percentage, would you lose one year of their life to be more muscly?

Paul Davies (28:31)
Wow, really? Okay.

Carolyn Mair (28:33)
terrible. mean,

yeah. And that is pressure. That pressure because we are such a visual oriented society now.

Paul Davies (28:43)
And where's that pressure coming from there?

Carolyn Mair (28:45)
I think a lot from social media, a huge amount from social media, which is inherently visual. And people edit their images, you know, they change their images so much that people don't look in real life like they look. I mean, who's going to put a bad photo of themselves up, to be honest? You know, some people do, but most people want to look their best and the best might be an edited version of themselves.

also the beauty industry. Cosmetic tweakments, if not surgery, are becoming normalised. They're much cheaper, they're easier, they're more accessible. People can have tweakments in their lunch break and go back to work afterwards. And this is becoming quite normal and at a younger age. So this for people who don't want to subscribe to this.

may feel or may feel that they are being judged as sloppy for not doing that. And now we're moving into the more strength-based images where women are not only expected to be stunningly beautiful facially, but physically muscular as well, toned and muscular. And this is all coming through on social media. So it has a huge problem for people

able-bodied and the disabled community as well.

Paul Davies (30:17)
It could sound to people listening that we're talking down fashion a little bit. We're talking about the dangers of fashion, your body image, fashion not accommodating different images of bodies, know, to say disabled bodies, pregnant bodies, ⁓ bodies of colour and so on. But actually you're really positive about fashion, aren't you? You're sort of really championing it and your book, The Psychology of Fashion, very much champions

what fashion can do. What are the positives of fashion then?

Carolyn Mair (30:46)
this.

I think the very important positives of fashion are understanding that psychology and fashion are interrelated. So I've said before they make a perfect marriage because we can use fashion as a tool. Yes, you're absolutely right. The fashion industry does have problems. It's always had problems. And that was my reason for taking psychology into fashion in the first place was to help it become more ethical and more sustainable to point out.

these problems that it had and see if understanding psychology could help the industry become more ethical, treat its workforce better and treat its consumers better with more respect, treat them with more intelligence, understand that they have the power to promote the brand or to really harm the brand as well. And so what I do is help consumers and help brands.

but help consumers choose their fashion items with purpose, intentionally, to help them portray the image they want to portray and to help them buy more mindfully. To help them, and that's not easy when we see something we really are attracted to, we want to buy it, but help them buy more mindfully. What is the cost per wear? Will I wear it? How have I got?

five other things at home that look almost identical to this, which happens quite a lot. So I think using fashion as a tool is super important. It's not a magic wand, but when we wear something that makes us feel good, it shows we look good. And that confidence shows through. So self-esteem is internal, but confidence is external. People can see it.

Paul Davies (32:19)
Yeah.

Carolyn Mair (32:45)
When we feel good, we look good. We express ourselves more easily. We talk to others more easily. And that's reciprocated. And that's the power. It becomes this loop of positivity.

Paul Davies (33:00)
I think that's wonderful message. And the very last line in your book is, psychology and fashion are now engaged. Let's celebrate their future marriage. May they live happily ever after. I think that's a wonderful way to finish your book. And I think it's a great positive way to finish this podcast as well. So thank you so much, Carolyn. If I didn't think about what I was wearing before, I certainly do now.

Carolyn Mair (33:22)
Bye.

Thank you so much, Paul. It's been an absolute pleasure. I loved your questions. Thank you.

Paul Davies (33:29)
⁓

good. If you'd like to go deeper into the ideas that we've chatted about, Carolyn's book, The Psychology of Fashion, is now out by Routledge in its second edition, and it's a very brilliant place to start. Everything Psychology will be back next time with another slice of everyday life that turns out to have more psychology in it than you'd expect. Until then, thank you very much for listening, and remember, everything really is psychology.