It’s a known secret that Met Gala preparations always start a year in advance. However, in the case of Dallas entrepreneur Sabrina Harrison, dress consultations began eight weeks before fashion’s biggest night, filled with countless Zoom calls and in-person fittings with designer CHRISHABANA up until the first Monday of May. “When I got the [Met Gala invitation] call, I was waiting for them to call back saying, ‘We’ve made a mistake,” Harrison told Beyond The Pines. “But while I was reading the story of Queen Ester, I had this vision of exactly what I wanted for this dress, something like ‘queen armor.’”
This year’s dress code, “Garden of Time,” inspired by English novelist J.G. Ballard’s 1662 short story of the same name, brought forth a starry evening of nature-oriented looks from red carpet favorites Zendaya, Lana Del Rey, Emma Chamberlin, Gigi Hadid and more. However, many stars opted for literal interpretations of time, namely first-year attendee Harrison, who embodied royalty in a golden clock-adorned custom gold dress from Habana, famously known for Beyonce’s robotic LED suit, complete with matching flawed gloves, a Swarovski-jeweled headpiece, and a technology-savvy teardrop purse that played old Met Gala red carpets on the screen inside.
What would be an anxiety-ridden time crunch for Habana, the Filipino celebrity designer never seemed nervous, according to Harrison, and embraced all of her design ideas, which landed her in Vogue’s “Best Headpieces” list. “He really turned my dream of a dress into something so much better,” Harrison said. “I knew everybody was going to show up in floral motifs, so I didn’t want to do another floral look — not when Law [Roach] brought me the most insane [archive] pieces.”
Harrison and Roach became friends through mutual acquaintances, first connecting at a Valentino afterparty, then again in Los Angeles for a Billboard event. But the pair sparked a working relationship amidst scandalous Met Gala chatter, with Roach coming onboard to pull Harrison’s look together alongside her longtime stylist Carlos Alonso. “I kind of just knew that I needed to call Law for reinforcement. He knows what it takes. It’s one thing to have a beautiful dress. It’s another thing to have a beautiful dress on a red carpet, with lights and cameras.”
Without Roach’s insight, Harrison’s gorgeous 3D-printed Dali-inspired breastplate wouldn’t exist. “He said, ’You need to make an impact in those three minutes you walk up the stairs,’” Harrison recounted the words of Zendaya’s stylist. “‘People need to see it and instantly understand that those are clocks.’”
Habana and Roach were the sole miracle workers capable of bringing Harrison’s brainchild to life in just eight weeks. The legendary pairing reversed any stage fright looming over the Texan entrepreneur’s debut walk while contextualizing her clock dress and accessories with enough conversation to entertain tablemates Shakira, Raul Martinez, and Ben Platt: “All night long, people were just asking to see my purse. Everybody was passing it around at the table, and it was so fun. The purse was kind of a nod to one of the gala’s sponsors, TikTok, but I personally wanted to marry my love for fashion and technology into a product– if only for a night.”
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