The looks, celebrating Ms Rei Kawakubo’s work for Comme des Garçons, that stole the show.

Yes, the Met Gala is faintly ridiculous – an annual parade of this week’s Who’s Who, all trying to outstyle their best frenemies and closest competitors with mixed, if entertaining, results (cyborg arms have been known to feature in past editions). But even if you’re somewhat fatigued by the whole thing, it’s difficult not to love it – the clearest evidence to this point being the fact that Ms Gwyneth Paltrow, despite vehemently swearing off the event in 2013 (her words: “I’m never going again”), returned this year. Of course, the exhibition celebrated this time round is one that is certain to be unanimously praised as very, very cool: it’s a retrospective of Japanese designer Ms Rei Kawakubo’s incredible, boundary-pushing work for Comme des Garçons. Did the various attendees rise to the occasion? Did they ever. Scroll down for our favourite looks.

The theme of this year’s Gala was the cryptic and quirky “art of the in-between”. Few of last night’s guests were better suited to interpret this than the actor-rapper-comedian-producer-writer-etc Mr Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino), whose own art moves seamlessly between several genres. The multi-hyphenate Renaissance man has also in recent times developed an admirable individual sense of personal style that runs the gamut from floral-print shirts on stage to double-breasted tailoring in front of a step-and-repeat. At the Met, he opted for something suitably in-between – an elaborate-print tuxedo jacket from Burberry that actually co-ordinated rather well with his red-carpet partner Ms Ruby Rose’s full-arm tattoos. As you do.

As the son of the late editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue, Ms Franca Sozzani, it is little surprise that film-maker Mr Francesco Carrozzini looks at ease in his clothing, even when that clothing is a rather eye-catching double-breasted tuxedo in royal blue with extremely generous peak lapels. He’s from Italy, too, which means the concept of a well-fitted suit is innate. How unfair. We’ll always applaud a man who can add a striking twist to a classic look without coming across as contrived.

In another fine example of how to put a personal slant on a tuxedo, Mr Paul Feig keeps it classic with a double-breasted black velvet jacket and patent loafers, but injects irreverence (and a canny nod to a key men’s trend) with some bright pink socks. It’s a theme that continues subtly when your eye meets his pocket square, which is embroidered with the same colour.

As fans of his smash-hit Netflix series Master Of None will be aware, comedian, actor and Style Council member Mr Aziz Ansari is quite the fashion plate who enjoys wearing Saint Laurent and Dior. On the red carpet he favours Italian tailoring, and last night he mastered the art of classic simplicity in a black slim-fit Ermenegildo Zegna Couture tuxedo. Double-breasted tailoring can sometimes swamp men who are smaller of stature, but here the lapels are correctly proportioned. Note also the self-tie bow tie (very important, especially if you want to avoid looking like a waiter) and the lapel embellishment, a nod to the current vogue for pins and patches.

Jeans to a black tie event? Oh, Mr Pharrell Williams, that rogue – he clearly doesn’t care about the so-called rules of style. Not one bit. To be fair, if there was ever a Met Gala at which to misbehave, surely this was it – Ms Kawakubo is, after all, a designer who has put men in skirts, see-through plastic outerwear and towering neon wigs. By her standards, in fact, maybe this predominantly Comme des Garçons outfit is rather tame. In any case, however you look at it, it looks good. It’s a lesson, in fact, in how to tame some of Ms Kawakubo’s more extravagant designs – that checked thing smuggled in under the biker jacket is not a plain old flannel shirt, but a deconstructed blazer studded with multiple appliqued buttons. Now you know.

Now here is a sentence that we at MR PORTER never thought we would utter: the latest thing to do on the red carpet seems to be to amputate one’s own hair and carry it around like a little bundle of twigs as some sort of statement accessory. Now it could be that this is an entirely practical manoeuvre. Maybe, somewhere in there, Mr Jaden Smith is hiding his iPhone, keys and a couple of Tic Tacs. But we’re inclined to think that this is more a gesture of the attention-grabbing sort. In that respect, it definitely worked. Consider our attention thoroughly grabbed. If not groped.

The men featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown