Met Gala 2022: Celebrities show off lavish outfits in New York

The Met Gala - one of fashion's biggest and starriest events - has rolled out its red carpet in New York for some of the globe's best-known A-listers.

Some 400 famous names from the worlds of music, film, fashion and sports strutted their stuff at the lavish costume parade on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The fundraiser has returned to its usual early May slot after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 event and delayed last year's to the autumn.

But this year's dress code - "gilded glamour", evoking America's late 19th Century age of economic boom - struck some as tone deaf.

Social media users poked fun at the choice of theme while American working families are struggling to make ends meet amid the highest inflation in four decades and an economy that just shrank in the last quarter.

One of the attendees, actor Riz Ahmed, arrived dressed as a chic labourer. "This is an homage to the immigrant workers who kept the Gilded Age golden," he said.

Among the guests was former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who said she was attending for the first time in 20 years to celebrate the fashion and spirit of America.

Tickets for the famously over-the-top do cost $35,000 and tables go for up to $300,000.

The party raises millions of dollars for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, a fashion museum whose tens of thousands of exhibits are closed to the general public.