I've looked through 100+ photos of fashions at the Met Gala so you don't have to.

You can if you want, here.

I'm just going to show you Janelle Monáe — my choice for the best:



There was a theme, you have to understand. The theme was the old Susan Sontag essay "Notes on Camp" — which you can read in full here. Or here's the explanation in the NYT:

In 1964, Susan Sontag defined camp as an aesthetic “sensibility” that is plain to see but hard for most of us to explain: an intentional over-the-top-ness, a slightly (or extremely) “off” quality, bad taste as a vehicle for good art.

“Notes on ‘Camp,’” her 58-point ur-listicle, builds on that inherent sense of something being “too much,” and also fences it in. Camp is artificial, passionate, serious, Sontag writes. Camp is Art Nouveau objects, Greta Garbo, Warner Brothers musicals and Mae West. It is not premeditated — except when it is extremely premeditated....

The NYT goes on to discuss whether various present-day things are camp. The most interesting part of this is the question whether President Trump is camp. The answer (the NYT answer, written by its fashion writer Vanessa Friedman):

Camp “can be actually a very sophisticated and powerful political tool, especially for marginalized cultures,” Andrew Bolton, the curator of the Met’s Costume Institute, told The New York Times when that show’s theme was announced. We tend to associate “marginalized cultures” with underrepresented minorities, but if you think about it, the frustrated white men who make up Donald J. Trump’s base would certainly describe themselves that way, and he has been their blunt-edged weapon. An orange-hued one, with tanning-bed-goggle eyes, an elaborate blonde pompadour and extra-long ties — because, well, you know what they say about ties: long ties, long … What? What’s that you say? They don’t say that about ties? Well, in the alternative universe of Trumpland, they do.

Born from the camp crucible of reality TV, President Trump has become synonymous with behavior that elicits exactly the kind of reactions Sontag deems key to camp: “It’s too much” and “not to be believed.” Superlatives rule the president’s speech — his crowds are the biggest ever, his memory the best — and his aversion to political correctness is practically a signifier. He’s a Louis XIV for our times. That he has his finger on the button just makes it more jaw-dropping.

And if you understand him that way... do you love him?

Does Sontag talk about love? Why, yes, it's #56 in her 58-point listicle:

56. Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of "character." . . . Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as "a camp," they're enjoying it. Camp is a tender feeling.

The final point on Sontag's list is the one you remember as "So bad, it's good." She's way more specific than that:

58. The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful . . . Of course, one can't always say that. Only under certain conditions, those which I've tried to sketch in these notes.

Whether Donald Trump meets those conditions... oh, must it always be about Trump?