Pamela Anderson Styled Her Own Jewelry for Her First-Ever Met Gala Appearance
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If you follow Pamela Anderson on social media, then you know she loves a garden. She currently resides on a large one: seven acres of countryside on Vancouver Island, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. On Instagram, Anderson often posts photos of herself reigning over it all like an earthbound angel, with wispy blonde hair and a flower tucked behind her ear. In her memoir, she even wrote that when she was growing up, her grandfather scattered small mirrors all over her garden, so that she could see fairies.
So when the powers that be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute said the dress code for the 2024 Met Gala would be “The Garden of Time,” they were practically telling everyone just to channel Pam on a regular Monday.
Anderson, though, had never attended the annual fashion extravaganza before, despite her signature style no doubt appearing on the mood boards of former attendees. (What is more camp than her now-famous pink fluffy hat?) Her absence from the Met Gala until last night will shock anyone who learns about it. When I told friends she’d never been before, almost all of them responded with: “That can’t be true!” But it is, which honestly made the night’s ethereal theme even more fitting for her debut.
And as one would expect, she of course looked as delicate as a wood nymph in a custom crinkled chiffon gown by Oscar de la Renta. A two-yard train jetted out from her micro-pleated waist, perhaps best seen not on the carpet but on Instagram, where she uploaded a video of it trailing behind her, as she ran from the halls of the Met galleries to the paths of Central Park. “From one garden to the next…” she captioned the video. One strap slipped off her shoulder, revealing 200 carats of white and pink custom Pandora lab-grown diamond necklaces draped over her shoulders, encircling her collarbones.
When it came to deciding what to wear, Anderson—who famously does not work with a stylist and never has—told Bazaar, “This is my first time attending, so it felt important to work with designers that understand me. I’m in a very freeing space right now. I can enjoy beauty and fashion on my own terms.”
Fashion on her own terms meant trusting Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim of Oscar de la Renta with the vision for her dress because they “always consider what will make me feel glamorous and comfortable,” Anderson said. And she opted for Pandora’s lab-grown diamonds as accessories because they’re “sustainable pieces” that “reflect the natural journey” she’s taken to feel most like herself.
Anderson has also recently been the face of Pandora’s lab-grown diamond campaign, and the jewelry brand’s team instantly had an idea about what she would wear to the gala when this year’s theme was announced. “Each year, the themes of the Met Gala and the incredible archive and curation of the Costume Institute capture our imaginations,” chief marketing officer Mary Carmen Gasco-Buisson told Bazaar. “This was especially true this year, as the themes of ‘Sleeping Beauties’ and ‘The Garden of Time’ felt in perfect synergy with the idea of lab-grown diamonds as the basis for reimagining the traditional codes of red-carpet jewelry.”
The design process for the jewelry took over a month of concepting and sketching, with some input from Anderson herself. It was inspired in large part, Gasco-Buisson said, by the actor herself and “the ideas of spontaneity, strength, [and] disarming beauty” that Anderson is considered a symbol of.
Pandora started by developing “the idea of a wild rose in a garden at dawn, glistening with morning dew,” Gasco-Buisson said. “To represent the idea of metamorphosis, we brought in a simple yet magnificent butterfly.” But the decision to wear the Pandora necklaces draped unconventionally was entirely Anderson’s. And it’s the kind of call only someone with the unfettered spirit of a fashion fairy could pull off.
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