Data analysis: Met Gala figures show key brands, moments, and celebs

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 3, 2023

The headlines around the Met Gala this week may have been about who wore what and the — for some — controversial choice of Karl Lagerfeld as this year’s theme, but perhaps even more interesting is the data that has now emerged from it all.

Social media management platform Dash Hudson and social media software company Brandwatch have both crunched the numbers and come up with some interesting results.

The headline story is that Anne Hathaway in an oh-so-Versace dress with a Chanel-influence twist was the star turn of the evening, while Dua Lipa and Jennie Kim — both in vintage Chanel — also set social media alight.

Dash Hudson said that in addressing criticism that the “event had become too commercialised and overrun by social media influencers”, it refocused on “exclusivity and seriousness in its theme interpretation” and as a result “garnered less social media attention than last year”, according to its figures.

But “less” doesn’t mean “little” and coverage was huge, while the data also showed that “the overall sentiment toward the event was overwhelmingly positive, with a mere 3% negative sentiment. This is a positive indication that the Met Gala is once again becoming an exclusive affair for fashion insiders rather than a mainstream event for everyone”.

It highlighted that “one of the most noticeable trends at this year's Gala was the emphasis on fashion over fame. In fact, the only celebrity to make it into the top 25 trending keywords from the evening was Blackpink’s Jennie Kim, who received entirely positive sentiment”. 

But on the downside, Jared Leto's cat costume “received the most negativity of any look, highlighting the fine line between daring and outrageous”. Lil Nas X and Doja Cat “also received mostly negative sentiment for their feline fashion”.

According to Dash Hudson’s AI-powered social listening tool, the top five visual trends of the night included bows, pearls, gloves, florals/the camellia, and bridal. The inclusion of bridal was perhaps no surprise, especially given that dresses worn by the most mentioned celebrities were largely white.

ANNE HATHAWAY IMPACT

Meanwhile, social media software company Brandwatch was also analysing what was going on during the broadcast of the event and it said the single minute that accumulated the most mentions was 7.48pm EST, with nearly 15,700 mentions in a single, 60-second time frame. This moment had a strong connection to Anne Hathaway’s appearance on the red carpet in that Versace-meets-Lagerfeld-meets-Chanel dress.

The wider timeframe of its analysis was 6pm EST to 9.45pm EST (roughly the timeline of the Met Gala’s red carpet TV broadcast) and with those hours there were more than 2.6 million mentions of the Met Gala across the social web.

Of those, more than 2.1 million accumulated during the red carpet broadcast and that broadcast accumulated, roughly, 600,000 more mentions than the previous year.

The overall “Met Gala conversation was extremely healthy”, and gained momentum around 6:46pm EST. “This momentum was generated by Blackpink’s Jennie making her way to the Gala”.

Brandwatch also examined Met Gala mentions across six different emotions, and said “it’s clear that the most prominently featured and conveyed emotion is Joy. More than 290,000 mentions contained language expressing Joy, and that accounts for 65% of all emotion-based mentions”.

That’s good news for fashion in general, because, despite the criticism it can come in for, Brandwatch said “the fashion industry, as a whole, tends to enjoy very positive conversations. This is due to the fact that fashion houses and designers have more than consumers, they have fan bases. Many people who may not actually own a single designer piece will routinely advocate for these brands online. This is a result of carefully crafted brand identities that are meant to evoke strong emotions in people”.

WOMEN IN THE DRIVING SEAT

The hashtag #MetGala accumulated more than 12.3 billion impressions during the red carpet broadcast, Brandwatch said. This is 2.9 billion more than in 2022 with 65% of its mentions coming from women.

The four hosts accumulated nearly 72,000 mentions collectively. Dua Lipa had the largest conversation by far with over 61,000 mentions, the rest being shared by Penélope Cruz, Michaela Coel and Roger Federer. There was never a time during the broadcast where any other host’s mentions eclipsed those of Dua Lipa.

We’ve already seen how Anne Hathaway drove a spike in interest and she managed over 123,000 mentions during the broadcast timeframe. She was followed in the top 10 by Doja Cat, Rihanna, Cardi B, Ice Spice, Halle Bailey, Jessica Chastain, Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, and Keke Palmer.

That Jared Leto cat suit may have seen a lot of negatives but it still gained him over 26,200 mentions in 11th place.

Of all the celebrity attendee conversations examined, only three received a majority of mentions from men. They were Jack Harlow, Hugh Jackman, and Dwyane Wade.

Karl Lagerfeld himself was mentioned more than 173,000 times online during the red carpet broadcast. And Lagerfeld’s conversation registered Joy as the most prominent emotion.

So it’s unsurprising that the most mentioned fashion house of this year’s Met Gala was Chanel with over 182,000 mentions. That was followed by Versace (18,000+), Thom Browne (14,500+), Marc Jacobs (6,000+), Fendi (almost 5,600), and Valentino (almost 5,500).

Chanel accounted for 71% of all designer mentions during the Met Gala red carpet and on a minute-by-minute basis, again, was never outshone by any other label.