The Met Gala has seen Zendaya take the forms of Cinderella, a saint, and several personas in between, but the Met Gala 2024 marks the actor and fashion icon’s first spin as a cochair of the benefit.
As cochair, alongside Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Chris Hemsworth, Bad Bunny, and Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya has helped plan and promote the fundraising event. Though she may be an early arrival, that doesn’t mean her look is necessarily completed early: Law Roach, who has worked with Zendaya on her fashion since she was 13, told The New York Times Thursday that the actor’s dress “isn’t even made” and that there will be a fitting on Saturday, just days before the Monday event.
Zendaya, however, seems unbothered.
“Hopefully with the Met, since I’ve been away for so many years, maybe this time around I won’t be so stressed,” she told USA Today this week ahead of the event, which she last attended in 2019.
The actor made her Met Gala debut in 2015, the same year that Rihanna established herself as a Met must-watch with her canary yellow Guo Pei gown for the year’s “China: Through the Looking Glass” theme. The then 18-year-old Zendaya made a great first impression at the event herself in a knee-length Fausto Puglisi gown with a dramatic train and coordinating headpiece.
She attended every year between 2015 and 2019, stealing the show in looks such as a Versace take on Joan of Arc for 2018’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” theme, and even brought Roach along with her in 2019 to be the fairy godmother to her over-the-top, Tommy Hilfiger–clad Cinderella. That look, complete with a pumpkin carriage purse and special effects smoke billowing from Roach’s magic wand, coordinated with the night’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion” dress code.
While we wait to see what Zendaya has chosen for her triumphant return to the Met Gala on Monday, take a look at all of her previous looks below.
Be sure to follow along with Vanity Fair’s live coverage of the 2024 Met Gala as fashion’s biggest night approaches.