How camp was the Met Gala? Not very

Celine Dion would be camp regardless of what she wore. Photo / AP

The Met Gala is an annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute where fashion and celebrity often collide. It always manages to raise eyebrows and this year's theme, Camp: Notes on Fashion, has generated much debate. A common question many fashionistas and cultural critics are asking of each outfit is "but is it camp?"

This kind of overly analytical and far too serious commentary on a sensibility that is supposed to mock such things is intriguing but not surprising given how the concept of camp has evolved.

In 1964, author Susan Sontag penned perhaps her most influential essay, Notes on Camp. It was one of the first attempts to try to pin down camp's qualities and parameters. It's clear why she chose to write some notes rather than a formal essay; because camp is a sensibility or a way of perceiving the world, it is quite difficult to treat systematically. In fact, Sontag would say that it often defies the very idea of systematisation. For Sontag, camp is "the love of the exaggerated, the 'off', of things-being-what-they-are-not", and though it is not merely visual, it has often been expressed in the visual styles of decor, architecture, cinema and fashion.

Certain aspects of Art Nouveau, old Flash Gordon comics, women's clothes of the 1920s like feather boas and fringed garments, celebrity dandies and "sissies" like Oscar Wilde and Paul Lynde, "overwrought" performances by classic Hollywood actresses such as Bette Davis and Judy Garland and so on. Key to camp is a sense of affectation, of style over substance. But equally important is the way one looks at those things, how one appreciates affectation.

Jared Leto, holding a model of his own head, attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala. Photo / AP

Many of the gowns and costumes at this year's Met Gala attempt to capture the essence of camp, and in trying to do so miss the point of camp entirely. There is nothing discernibly camp about Jared Leto carrying around a replica of his own head. Quirky and strange? Maybe. But nowhere near camp.

Celine Dion wore a glittering tribute to Judy Garland and the Ziegfield Follies, designed by Oscar de la Renta. While inspired by camp figures, it is not the outfit here that is camp but the person wearing it. Dion is arguably a contemporary camp icon, and would be camp regardless of what she wore, because her celebrity image owes more to her overly emotional songs and the way in which she performs them, her goofy persona, and the heightened emotion of some of her public statements.

Designer Alessandro Michele, left, and Harry Styles attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala. Photo / AP

People with a camp appreciation of Dion enjoy her ironically, finding the style of her public personality entertaining. Such appreciators would probably also love the fact she apparently initially thought the theme for this year's gala was "camping". In nature. Bless her.

For Sontag and many thinkers who came after her, there really are two ways of "doing" camp. One is the "naive camp" and the other is "conscious camp". Naive camp is the Judy Garland kind of camp. Garland did not intend to be a gay icon, but she became one because her earnest, overwrought performances invited many queer people to view her as a camp figure.

Gay men in particular appreciated the affectations in her performances, in a similar way to how drag queens are appreciated in the queer community. They are not appreciated for how well they perform but for how much they perform, for how much extra they put into their lip-synched song and dance.

Lady Gaga attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Camp: Notes on Fashion" exhibition. Photo / AP

Conscious camp is what was on display at the Met Gala. Take Lady Gaga's Russian doll of dresses, each layer referencing old Hollywood glamour to an over the top degree. An oversized version of Marilyn Monroe's dress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is removed and beneath it is a sleeker black, femme fatale number, followed by another reveal of a more realistically proportioned pink dress. Gaga is well-versed in queer and pop cultural aesthetics, and there was a fun narrative here, but its barrage of old Hollywood references don't necessarily make it camp.

The best kind of camp is the kind that doesn't know it is camp. Which is just another way of saying you can't really design and wear your way into the camp sensibility.

• Matthew Sini, Lecturer in Screen Media, University of the Sunshine Coast

- The Conversation