The most entertaining red-carpet looks of the Met Gala 2023 came from Vaquera. Designers Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee of the independent New York-based label styled September Evans, Anita Kristiansen, and Anita Li. Finally, Carrie Marie Carey, their last starlet of the night, donned a thrashed dress that appeared to be covered in mud. One comment from a user simply read: “Incredible.” But you wouldn’t have seen these outré looks hit the red carpet because they never existed in the first place. Instead, these entertaining paparazzi moments were generated by the AI program Midjourney; a tool, which uses text prompts to create realistic images. It took the designers roughly a day to create the bulk of the Vaquera looks, with some varying wait times. DiCaprio created Evans’s look a few weeks ago. But don’t ask DiCaprio or Taubensee about the inspiration behind the creation. It is kind of secretive. Whatever the terms DiCaprio or Taubensee entered into the AI program, Vaquera’s Met Gala outings ultimately hinged on both protest and fantasy. This was not the only controversy this year’s Met Gala invited. Two weeks before the 2023 Met Gala, the team behind the High Fashion Twitter Met Gala sent out a tweet saying they would not hold their usual digital companion event for the Gala as their values do not match with the selection of Karl Lagerfeld as the theme. The tweet was part of a longtime dialogue around Lagerfeld’s legacy as an influential designer who had a penchant for problematic quips that were fatphobic, racist, and misogynistic. #Queer Up Gay Culture