Naomi Watts Wore a Swanlike Balenciaga Tablecloth to the 2024 Met Gala
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Magazine editor and socialite Babe Paley would definitely wear a lace tablecloth if it were Balenciaga. So it feels only right that actor Naomi Watts—who played Paley in this year’s true-life miniseries Feud: Capote vs. the Swans—would wear a lace Balenciaga tablecloth to the 2024 Met Gala earlier this week.
The day after the SAG Award winner walked the carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she tells me she “100 percent yes—1,000 percent yes” believes Paley would wear her look for the evening: a black Balenciaga gown that was indeed designed around a lace tablecloth, which Watts says was “bought for 20 euros on eBay.”
The Met dress code this year was “The Garden of Time,” and the Spanish fashion house’s team decided to channel the time aspect more so than the garden. Watts can’t stop obsessing over the tales the tablecloth contains.
“To me, it’s all about going back in time and finding little treasures and making them into a new story,” she says. “What I love about this tablecloth is that they have not cut the tablecloth—it has remained in its oval shape, and they found a way to drape it to fit my body. So, really respecting how it was formed in its original time, and then just adding to it and transforming it to a way that makes it work in today’s era. And it fits like a glove.” On the carpet, it said a lot more than a rose or a tulip ever could.
“I'm just fascinated with whose home the tablecloth came from, who sat and ate from that table—what was eaten there, and in what era,” Watts continues. “So I feel like the dress is telling a story as I’m wearing it.” The column dress is also a silhouette she’s repeated because it doesn’t feel overpowering and works for her small frame. As for the rest of the delicate beading on the dress—which took over 600 hours to complete—she tells me she loved how it wasn’t symmetrical but instead “flowed exactly in line with the pattern of the lace tablecloth.”
Babe Paley, Watts says, “was mad, mad, mad for Balenciaga” and “a faithful lover of the brand because of its perfect elegance.” The socialite was also “bold and had strong ideas herself,” the actor notes, “but she definitely had a sense of humor, too, and she would be up for trying things.” A Met Gala dress made from a repurposed tablecloth just seems like a good fit for the most swanlike of Swans, who didn’t take herself too seriously. And if anyone would know, it would be Watts, whose portrayal of Paley helped bring that graceful, slinky 1960s look back into the fashion zeitgeist.
Of course, no Balenciaga look could ever feel truly complete without a pair of sheathlike opera gloves that slip on like a second skin. “Wearing gloves has become a big thing I’ve noticed on the red carpets lately, and it’s a nice, elegant touch to really elevate a look,” Watts says. “In this case, we’ve chosen white, because you can lose the silhouette of one’s body with black on black.”
Watts also wore a huge black stole, and placed her hands strategically along her body while posing for photos, to shape the silhouette or her waistline and “bring out the drama of the stole.” It provided a stark contrast to the rest of the look and was, in her words, “pure drama.” As she puts it: “It’s like a big, giant pillow you just want to sleep gently on.”
The actor also tells me she’s wanted to get back into a Balenciaga frock for some time now, because Demna knows how to use humor to create something memorable. And while Watts has spent the last couple of months retelling and re-wearing and re-inspiring the style of a bygone era, it feels like with this Met Gala look (and its timeless tablecloth), she’s creating exactly the kind of piece the Swans of today and tomorrow will want to wear forever.
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