The Met Gala's most influential celebrity guests, according to data

The Met Gala is one of fashion’s biggest nights of the year. Held annually on the first Monday in May (besides a brief pandemic-related hiatus in 2020 and a move from May to September in 2021) , the fundraising gala launched in 1948 and has been a cornerstone of the fashion calendar ever since. The so-called “Oscars of Fashion” centres around a changing theme and is famed for providing a platform to showcase extravagant costumes by world-renowned designers, worn by A-listers from Hollywood, fashion, the arts and sport.  

Vogue’s powerhouse editor-in-chief Anna Wintour has been at the helm of the event since 1995, during which time it has become the most hotly anticipated (and highly scrutinised) red carpets on the planet. In the last decade alone, interest in the event has increased ten-fold, thanks to the rise of social media commentary and increasing shareability of each outfit. 

But with so many celebrities all vying for column inches, brand awareness and social media virality, which star can lay claim to creating the biggest impact at the Met Gala? We decided to crunch the numbers and find out.  

Analysing Google Trends data for 150 celebrities over the last 10 years, we have visualised the Met Gala’s most searched celebrity looks year-by-year. Which celebrities’ fashion capital has risen (and fallen) the most since 2014 and who can be crowned King or Queen of the Met Gala?  

Timeline: the most searched Met Gala looks since 2014

The Met Gala has given us some of the most creative and headline-grabbing outfits and beauty looks ever seen. But which have captured our imagination the most? We have tracked which celebrities garnered the most global searches at each event over the last 10 years, showing a winner and runner-up since 2014.  

The 5 most searched Met Gala celebrities 

Which celebrity has caused the biggest stir at the Met Gala over the last decade? There was a clear winner: Katy Perry. The singer’s Met Gala looks have been searched over 7.2 million times, crowning her the Queen of the event. She was followed by Gossip Girl alumni Blake Lively, with 4.3 million searches and Kendall Jenner, whose Met Gala looks have driven 2.8 million searches. Rihanna came in fourth with more than 2.5 million searches, pipping Kim Kardashian to the post whose Met Gala looks have seen just shy of 2.5 million searches. 

The most searched Met Gala celebrities: rise and fall  

We also tracked the Met Gala’s five most influential celebrities over the last 10 years, to highlight how their influence has risen or fallen. Katy Perry and Blake Lively saw their biggest peaks in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian's Met Gala influence has gained momentum since 2017 and peaking in 2022 in "that" Marilyn dress, charting her evolution from reality star to bona fide fashion icon. Kendall Jenner also saw her most impactful Met Gala look in 2017, wearing a sheer La Perla dress. Despite many popular looks over the years, Rihanna's Met Gala most recently impact peaked in 2015 wearing a dramatic yellow Guo Pei dress with enormous train.

The most searched Kardashian at the Met Gala 

Finally, we couldn’t resist seeing how one of the world’s most famous families fared in the Met Gala over the years, creating a specific Kardashian-Jenner themed ranking. Each member has been a mainstay on the red carpet since the early 2010s, despite persistent rumours that they will not be invited each year. 

It was neck-and-neck between supermodel Kendall Jenner and her older sister Kim Kardashian, with 2.8 million and 2.5 million searches, respectively. Youngest family member Kylie Jenner came in third place with 1.8 million searches, followed by Khloe Kardashian in fourth (257,000 searches). Kourtney Kardashian was in fifth with almst 133,000 searches and matriarch and Mom-ager Kris Jenner brought up the rear in sixth position with just over 100,000 searches in the last 10 years. 

Methodology 

We analysed Google Trends data from each May since 2014, using a seed list of 150 different celebrity Meta Gala guests. We took the absolute search volume of each “celebrity name + met gala” to define the final rankings.  

The Met Gala did not take place in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, so we did not include any data points from that year. The Met Gala was postponed in 2021 from May to September, so we used September data for 2021 instead.