Jodie Turner-Smith knows exactly how to nail a column inch-amassing red-carpet look, whether it’s giving glittering Jazz Age glamour (see the crystal-swathed conceal-and-reveal Gucci gown she wore to her first Met Gala in 2022), or parading pantless at Vogue World in London last year (cue… nothing but a Viktor & Rolf bow-festooned wrap, a black thong and opera gloves).
The custom Burberry gown the British actress and model chose for her sophomore turn on the Met Gala red carpet–a floor-sweeping transparent tulle dress hand-embroidered with ivory silk organza faux feather flowers, layered over a mesh underdress shimmering with 150,000 faux pearls–chimed sublimely with the theme of this year’s Costume Institute exhibition, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, and its tribute to delicate pieces from fashion history too fragile to be worn again.
“It makes me feel like a beautiful English garden,” Turner-Smith enthuses of her gown – which took two weeks to make–when she and I grab a moment on the phone the morning before the Met Gala. Taking time out from a photoshoot, she references the British blooms, from roses to wildflowers, that Burberry creative director Daniel Lee has incorporated into his wider brand vision, and also alludes to JG Ballard’s sci-fi short story The Garden of Time (which inspired the 2024 dress code), and the writer’s “time flowers,” which feature crystal hearts that emit the light trapped within once they are picked. “They feel like a metaphor for any flower,” she says. “Because as soon as you cut a flower it perishes. The details on the dress represent that delicateness, but the pearl underdress feels like an armour, and indicates a strength behind the fragility of the tulle and organza.”
The dress also nods to a more unofficial theme of the world’s most-ogled red carpet: the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it naked dress, of which the Kardashian-Jenners, the Hadid sisters, Emily Ratajkowski and Turner-Smith herself have become poster girls. Such creations call for strict self-care regimes, particularly if–like Turner-Smith–you’ve been juggling back-to-back night shoots for the last three weeks. “I just had two days in LA and I made sure to see Shirley, my lymphatic drainage girl!” laughs Jodie, who has also been carving out time for Pilates and “ginger shots throughout the day”.
“There are a lot of nerves before the Met Gala, it feels like a performance,” Turner-Smith adds. Her tried-and-tested way to take the edge off? “Before I go on the red carpet, I always have a glass of Clase Azul Reposado,” she says, laughing. “I’m such a health-focused person, but I love tequila.”
When quizzed on who she’s most excited about hanging out with on the starriest night of the year, Turner-Smith name checks her host for the evening, Daniel Lee. “This is my first time attending with Burberry, and it’s such a huge way to begin a collaborative relationship.” Jodie will also be fan-girling over Zendaya, the Met Gala’s 2024 co-chair and Vogue’s May cover star. “I’ve just seen Challengers, and, oh my God, I’m obsessed! I love to cheer people in front of their faces, and this is the moment of Zendaya. She’s living it, it killing it, owning it!”
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