At 2pm on the Met Gala afternoon, Kelsea Ballerini is perfectly on time. In fact, it is ahead of schedule. “Hello friend!” she greets me at 1:59 PM “Happy Met Monday!”
My first question: “How are you feeling?” – Immediately go out the window. Ballerini obviously feels good. “I feel like it's Christmas,” he says. “I woke up so dizzy.” It's a fitting sensation: In just a few hours, she'll be making her Met Gala debut in custom Michael Kors. “[The anxiousness]”, she says, “it will happen. I'm just trying to stick it out until the last minute.”
She's certainly set herself up for success: the day before, she did a full rehearsal of the final look: a see-through dress covered in flowers that 8 artisans spent more than 3,550 hours hand-stitching and custom jewelry by Simon G, with hair by Simon G. Peter Lux, wearing Pantene, and glam by Kelsey Deenihan, using COVERGIRL (some inside scoop: There was no eyelash curler in the night's look, just the new 3D mascara the brand's Eye Enhancer) and a shot of tequila with Kors, for luck. After all, it was Cinco de Maig. “Now, we have a road map and we have all the time in the world,” he says. “There's no rush, which I love.”
When we catch up, she's done with her hair and about to put on her makeup. Her other ingredient for success, boyfriend Chase Stokes, who also attends with Kors, is above. “She'll start getting ready in an hour,” he laughs.
Ahead of her first Met Gala, Ballerini talks exclusively to NYLON about the getting ready process, going nude on the red carpet, and who she hopes to take a bathroom selfie with.
OK, first things first: when did you find out you were potentially going?
We got the invitation… Golly, like a month and a half ago. Maybe two months ago now. I do not remember. I was in the car and my agent called me and said, “You have the official invitation to go to the Met Gala with Michael Kors.” It's full circle, because Michael was my first New York Fashion Week show. He's the first designer I've met in this capacity, so it feels special to me, and I told him yesterday that he says to me, “You're my fashion first.” It's lovely, so real and funny.
I hear the Michael Kors table is always one of the funnest tables inside.
That's what he was saying. He said, “It doesn't matter who's performing. We get up. We have fun.”
Who else is on the Kors crew tonight?
We have Meg Ryan, who is iconic. Gabrielle Union and her husband. We have Rachel Zegler, who is so sweet. We sat close to each other at the Kors show. Allison Williams and her husband. Then me and Chase.
It's so great that you two can go together.
it will be fine Also, just because we both get a little overstimulated when there's a lot going on, so being able to have your own person to hang out with is nice.
Tell me about the dress. Did they come to you with a sketch?
Michael sent two sketches, and immediately I saw one, and I said, “That's something I would take to a carpet,” and it has just the right amount of drama for the Met carpet, because it does. Feel like you really want to up your fashion game. It's very themed, Garden of Time, it's floral. He said he was inspired american beautywhich I thought was very cool.
I saw you uploaded the movie poster to your story earlier!
It feels archival in that way, but it also feels very springy in New York, and it's held me accountable to keep doing my Pilates. There's not much left to the imagination in this outfit.
I made the watch you posted on SLT yesterday, on a rainy Sunday no less.
I've really been trying my best to feel good about it because I've had time, I've known it's coming up and you only get your first Met once, so I really wanted to feel like mind, body, 100 % entering it.
When did you try on the dress for the first time?
We went to Kors on Saturday and did a first fitting, and then came to the hotel yesterday. So I hadn't seen the dress until Saturday. And you know me, I'm a Virgo, I like to know everything. So I was like, “Please, God, let this fit right,” but it was perfect. So yesterday Michael came to the hotel and we had some tequila for Cinco de Mayo and did our other prep.
Funnily enough, I'm a ring girl, so I always have tons of rings on, and for the fit, I had to take them off. Michael said, “I'll keep them for you,” and he put them in his pocket, and now he has all my rings. I say, “Michael, you better not bail tonight. I need those rings.”
How did we get to the ultimate glam tonight?
It's a high neck, and it's the most concentrated amount of flowers at the top of the neckline, so we wanted to keep the hair back, but also continue the flowers up into the hair. So it's this kind of messy, really cute updo, with a little rock, because Chase's look is very Jim Morrison. The flowers then continue into the hair, which again, for a normal red carpet, probably wouldn't be as dramatic, but for the Met.
From the sketch I saw, it looks like he also has a jacket that goes over him?
There's this beautiful, big, dramatic jacket that I'm only going to wear for the first few minutes, and then Michael wants me to take it off and almost drag it as part of the train.
What happens right before you hit the mat? Will you take a shot?
100% I do this before every mat, probably not my healthiest habit, but it loosens me up to get out of my head. A good shot of 42, and I'll be ready to go.
Do you have other friends going tonight?
I really do not know. I'm really excited to meet people I know. I heard SZA is leaving. And we all know how I feel about that, so my personal goals for the night are, A, not to trip on those stairs. Objective B is to interact with SZA. Preferably, I'd love to somehow end up in the infamous bathroom selfie with her. So, C, just slow my ass down, because I'm always daring things and I'm always like, “Kelsea, don't get in the way. Kelsea, don't take somebody else's place,” and I just don't I do it. they want to hear this. I just want to say, “Oh, I'm here. We're all here. Just take it easy.”
Who's excited to see Chase?
Oh, he knows more people than I do about this sort of thing.
Have you been to the Met before?
He hasn't. We are both first. It's very funny. But I'm only the third artist in the country to ever go to the Met. So I'm definitely the new kid.
No way, is that true?
Only Taylor [Swift] and Kacey [Musgraves]. And Keith [Urban]. Keith went with Nicole.
What's the plan for the after party?
I think we'll go back to the hotel, have a New York pizza. That's the first thing on the agenda, and then I think there's three games we're going to.
Are you switching to a second look?
I am. The outfit is so hyper-feminine that we wanted to do a little juxtaposition, so I'm just wearing this cute open neutral brown blazer with a neutral Kors bra and underwear. Tonight we will show Pilates.
Abs need their moment.
I'm trying!
Photographs by OK McCausland
