Lewis Hamilton at the Met Gala 2024

Since its first major event dating back to 1948, the Met Gala has been known for its beautiful fashion and star-studded guest list. The 2024 Costume Institute exhibition at The Met is titled, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion and the gala itself followed a dress code of “The Garden of Time,” inspired by a short story carrying the same title by J.G. Ballard. While we often see guests deter away from the theme, there are many who manage to create something spectacular and within the provided dress code. This year one of those was the seven-time World Champion Formula 1 driver, Sir Lewis Hamilton.

The incredibly talented and stylish race car driver certainly did his research and did not disappoint. With a look created by David Lee and his team at Burberry, Hamilton looked every bit what the theme demanded. Inspiration was taken from the legacy of John Ystumllyn, an 18th-century gardener, whose portrait is newly on display in the Garden Museum of London, and was one of Britain's earliest known black gardeners.

John Ystumllyn is likely to have been a victim of the Atlantic Slave Trade, taken from Africa to Wales in his youth. It was at Ystumllyn Estate in Criccieth he learned the art of horticulture, and there fell in love and later eloped, with a local maid by the name Margaret Gruffydd. They had several children and retired to a cottage and garden they were given in recognition of their service.

Stitched into the inside of the botanic-inspired Burberry jacket was the last piece of a poem entitled The Gardner by Alex Wharton that was inspired by the life of John Ystumllyn. The last few lines of Wharton’s poem speak of his love for Margaret, saying “Maybe the trees will speak… Whispers from the shade.” Wharton is using a metaphor for the talks in town of the local maid, a white woman, marrying a black gardener.

Wharton’s poem depicts John as a man comfortable in his skin, unafraid of, “the trees speaking.” This mimics Hamilton’s own ethics as he is consistently outspoken in his beliefs, which we can see demonstrated in his last Met Gala appearance in 2021 when he bought out a table to showcase several emerging, young, black designers in his constant effort to spotlight black talent. This is just one action of many where the World Champion has chosen to broadcast his beliefs to the public despite the potential of talk from the media, peers, etc.

There are another few lines from Alex Wharton’s poem in the second to last stanza, not stitched into Burberry coat, that read:

I’ll turn soil for her,

Show her that darkness

Isn’t emptiness but

endless giving.

Flowers are birthed here.

Food and life.

This beautiful double entendre by Wharton can also be applied to The Garden of Time. Sir Lewis Hamilton is turning the soil for us, reminding us that here there isn’t emptiness but endless giving as he broadcasts the voice of one of the first depicted black gardeners. And that flowers, much like the ones adorned to his jacket, can grow here. And with his food of thought through research and the poet Alex Wharton they have both reminded us of the brilliance of a life we might otherwise have forgotten.

Image Source: Burberry X Account

Sources:

The Gardner by Alex Wharton

Hopper, Bethany. “Portrait of John Ystumllyn (1754) on Display in the Garden Museum.” Garden Museum, 24 Oct. 2023, gardenmuseum.org.uk/john-ystumllyn-british-school-inscribed-11th-may-1754/?srsltid=AfmBOoodNESy6Es_mB2Cyg1relA8XLB3JjJ0Hh8PtNauebKy-OFtAi_j.