Josephine Skriver says she spent the 2019 Met Gala standing in the bathroom because her dress was too big to sit in.

The Met Gala is less of a dinner party and more of an endurance sport. Josephine Skriver learned this the hard way in 2019. The model arrived on the iconic steps in a massive floral gown, entirely unaware of the event’s most crucial logistical secret. You do not actually wear your red carpet dress to the dinner.

Skriver tells host Olivia Ponton on Booked, Blonde & Busy that she and her designer had conceptualized a sprawling, structural piece for the Camp theme. The problem was that neither of them had ever attended the event. They completely forgot to factor in the physics of a standard dining chair.

Obviously, it’s a sit-down dinner after and I couldn’t really sit. And then I walked in and everybody has like a way to take it off like wedding dresses. They had like these like Oh, this is my party outfit. This is what I can actually live in. And I was like, Oh, that is so smart.

The seasoned veterans come prepared. They hit the carpet in museum pieces, then immediately shed them for garments they can actually breathe in. Left without a backup, Skriver spent the formal dinner perched awkwardly on the edge of her seat, comparing the posture to being crammed in the back of a car. The physical relief of standing up eventually drove her to the one place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she actually fit. The women’s restroom.

It was more comfortable in the bathroom cuz I could like stand up and like eight girls had to help me pee anyway.

The secret exit strategy

The bathroom famously serves as the real VIP lounge of the event, mostly because everyone is trapped in the same unmanageable outfits. But the logistics of navigating these giant dresses extend all the way to the exit strategy. You never see photos of guests descending the stairs at the end of the night because nobody leaves through the front door.

Or you can but there’s also like there was a side where like it was underneath the tent and then cars just pulled up.

The next time you see a celebrity dragging a chandelier or a literal sofa up the Met steps, just know they are not wearing it past the coat check. If they do, they are spending the rest of the night hovering in a bathroom stall.