“The designers must fight to the death to dress you,” Kelly Ripa told Zendaya, the 27-year-old actress, as they discussed her preparation for this year’s Met Gala on a recent episode of “Live With Kelly and Mark.”
Zendaya gave a knowing smile. Since she last attended the fashion extravaganza in 2019, she has become not only a leading actress onscreen (lately, in the tennis romance “Challengers”) but a red-carpet force whose looks can be anticipated almost as hotly as the projects they are meant to promote. Her committed style of dressing has become “a tool of both image-making and moneymaking,” wrote Jessica Testa, a fashion reporter for The New York Times.
So it is of intense interest to red-carpet watchers that Zendaya will return to the Met Gala on Monday for the first time in five years, this time as a co-chair. She will be styled by Law Roach, the “image architect” who has been working with her since she was 13. “We call each other our fashion soul mates,” he told Vanessa Friedman in a recent interview.
Zendaya’s willingness to take fashion risks has been on display at her past five Met Gala appearances, which have involved chain mail, parrots and a color-changing Cinderella dress with a pumpkin carriage purse. But ascending the steps has not exactly gotten easier with practice, she told Ms. Ripa: “It’s still terrifying.”
Below, a look through Zendaya’s Met Gala history.
2019
‘Camp: Notes on Fashion’
For the camp-themed gala in 2019, Zendaya assumed full Cinderella cosplay in a billowing ball gown with puff sleeves by Tommy Hilfiger. It transformed from gray to a luminous blue with the wave of a wand by Mr. Roach, who dressed as her fairy godmother.
2018
‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’
Zendaya wore Versace’s take on armor to the 2018 Met Gala, complete with glittering silver epaulets, a spiked metal collar and a deep, single-leg split. The heavy gown was leavened by a wavy red bob with bangs.
Mr. Roach has said that the inspiration for the look arrived while he was sleeping. “I dreamt of Joan of Arc one night and called Versace and was like, ‘What if we did something to reference Joan of Arc?’” he told WWD. “They came back with really, really great sketches.”
At the 2017 gala, Zendaya wore an off-the-shoulder Dolce & Gabbana ball gown with illustrations of parrots and flowers descending its tangerine-and-maize skirt. Our critic described it as a “Tropicana fantasy.”
2016
‘Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology’
Zendaya arrived at the 2016 Met Gala in a sleek, form-fitting column of gold fabric by Michael Kors with a taut collar and a single sleeve. Her eye makeup evoked gunmetal, and her hair was in a high-gloss bowl cut.
2015
‘China: Through the Looking Glass’
Zendaya attended her first Met Gala when she was 18, just a few years after her debut on the Disney Channel dance show “Shake It Up.” She wore a Fausto Puglisi dress with a black bodice and a short red skirt, adding a headband and wrist cuff with a sunburst pattern to match.
