Pete Davidson’s Met Gala ‘Sexy Nun’ Outfit Included a Tunic Dress & Wingtip Boots for a Striking Debut in 2021

As rumors swirl around the 2023 Met Gala — it’s time to reminisce on looks from the past. Currently at top of mind is Pete Davidson.

The 2021 Met Gala  saw an explosion of experimental suiting. Among the Thom Browne-clad army of bespoke skirted men, including Lee Pace and Evan Mock, was Davidson. The “Saturday Night Live” star was sharply dressed by Browne in a black tunic dress, layered atop a classic white collared shirt. Giving the look a dose of chic was a white blazer with black piping, plus layered bracelets, jeweled and pearl necklaces and a set of black sunglasses.

Davidson’s footwear was equally sharp: a set of black leather lace-up wingtip boots over matching calf-high socks, each punctuated with Browne’s signature white four-bar logo. The set added a graphic punch to finish the actor’s look, while remaining sharp and grungy. Davidson even described his ensemble as channeling a “sexy nun” while speaking to Vogue. The star’s Met Gala debut outfit was certainly subversive, but also showed a shift in classic men’s suiting that’s been occurring on the red carpet in recent months — with Brown leading the charge, dressing stars like Oscar Isaac and Dan Levy in matching pleated skirts and blazers.

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In 2022, Davidson made headlines as he hit the carpet with then-girlfriend Kim Kardashian. Kardashian stepped out to fashion’s biggest night wearing Marilyn Monroe’s $5 million “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress, courtesy of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. The dress was loaned to the star by the museum on the condition that it wasn’t altered. It was last sold for $4.8 million in 2016, making it the most expensive dress ever sold at auction.

Davidson, meanwhile, wore a black Dior tuxedo and matching sunglasses.

The 2022 Met Gala’s theme saw the second portion of a two-part exhibition exploring fashion in the United States. This section of the exhibition highlighted sartorial narratives that relate to the complex and layered histories of the American Wing period rooms. The looks featured date back from 1805 to the present, and surveyed more than two hundred years of American domestic life while telling a variety of stories including of those often forgotten in the history of fashion. To coincide with the second portion, the Costume Institute held the Met Gala on May 2, 2022. The event marked a return on the first Monday in May after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The exhibit included 100 garments by independent designers and dressmakers from the 1800s to the mid-late 1900s in the Museum’s American Wing period rooms. There were also “freeze frames” of film vignettes in each room, highlighting the aesthetics of eight different film directors: Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, Martin Scorsese, Autumn de Wilde and Chloé Zhao.

The 2022 Met Gala was co-chaired by Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, as well as Regina King and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Celebrating the Costume Institute’s “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibit, the Gala included Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, fashion designer Tom Ford and head of Instagram Adam Mosseri as honorary co-chairs. Additional event support was provided by Instagram and Condé Nast.

This year, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute spring 2023 exhibition will examine the work of the late Karl Lagerfeld. The designer, who died in 2019 at 85, worked at Patou, Balmain, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, in addition to founding his eponymous brand. Within the exhibit, Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s Wendy Yu Curator in Charge, examined the work of Lagerfeld, featuring approximately 150 of the designer’s pieces from the 1950s to his final collection. Vogue announced that this year’s hosts would be Penélope Cruz, Michaela Coel, Roger Federer, Dua Lipa, and Vogue’s Anna Wintour as the night’s co-chairs.

The exhibit will run from May 5 to July 16, 2023.

Discover Davidson’s grungy style over the years in the gallery.