The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum is home to over 33,000 objects dating all the way back to the 15th century, and that makes the collections department there a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of fashion history. The space itself looks like a laboratory—all gleaming white surfaces and gigantic vaults—about as far removed from the fusty museum office cliche as you can get. “Well, I’m in heaven,” says designer Claire Sullivan, as we pore over a table that’s dripping with vintage Chanel: the most perfect ribbed tank top embroidered with interlocking CCs, a delicate ankle-length tulle skirt, chunky black and gold jewelry, and spiffy black and white brogues.
As you can imagine, the policy here is look, but please don’t touch. Our Costume Institute guide, Tracy Yoshimura, is wearing pristine white gloves and here to help Sullivan get a closer look at the exquisite construction of this and several other items of clothing designed by the late Karl Lagerfeld. A ball skirt and crop top from Chanel’s 1999 spring couture collection will ultimately inspire the Sullivan-designed outfit I will wear to the Met Gala in just a couple weeks as the editor of Vogue.com. This year is in celebration of “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” the institute’s latest exhibition, and the dress code—in honor of Karl—speaks for itself. “Going through the collections online, it was a difficult selection to make because there are so many incredible pieces,” says Sullivan who, in addition to the archive Chanel, has picked out a gently padded black Chloe dress from Lagerfeld’s 1970s era at the house for inspiration. “I wanted to nail a few different Karl signatures.”
Though her eponymous label, Miss Claire Sullivan, is still relatively new, she’s already developed some alluring signatures of her own. Personally, I’m drawn to the exuberant exaggerated proportions of her one-of-a-kind designs, the waist-whittling corsetry, the irreverent hyper feminine flourishes, like giant bows and ribbon trimmings for example. There’s also a deliciously subversive attitude to her work that you rarely find in the world of occasion dressing, one that feels reminiscent of the early work of Vivienne Westwood.
Her roster of stylish clients reflects that fresh and spirited approach; since she started designing for custom clients in August 2021 she’s worked with the likes of model Paloma Elsesser, artist Tourmaline, and musician Zsela. So of course I was thrilled when she responded almost immediately to my DMs about designing a dress. “I’m a fashion lover through and through,” says Sullivan, who was a member of the New York fashion collective Vaquera before recently striking out on her own. “I love retail, but I think there’s something liberating about working in collaboration with someone to make something feel special to them, tailoring it to their personality as much as to their body.”
Less than a week later, I find myself at her light-filled studio in Williamsburg stripped down to stockings and undies and ready for my first fitting. There are fewer than 10 days left until the gala but Sullivan radiates a sense of calm that soothes my slightly frazzled nerves. The sketches she has sent me manage to filter all the things I admire about her work through a Lagerfeld-inflected lens. “I have been working a lot with ball skirts—or poof skirts as I call them—and something about that felt like it was the right moment, because it feels so opulent but has this casual element to it as well. And then I was doing my research, looking back on my references and that late 1990s Chanel couture, and it was like, Oh, that’s such a perfect pairing,” she says, pulling up the runway image of model Devon Aoki in the ethereal salmon pink look on her phone. “I wanted to reference the suiting elements that were so prominent with Karl at Chanel too, and lean into that pinstripe.”
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