Bad Bunny brings 'español' and his love for Puerto Rico to the forefront at the Met Gala

Latin music artist Bad Bunny brought the Spanish language and his love for Puerto Rico to the forefront at the Met Gala, where he was one of the Co-Chairs of 2024. Never before had a Latino artist looked so proud of his culture and language at the iconic stairs of New York City's Metropolitan Museum. To see and hear him during the most important night of fashion was a moment of pride.

The 2024 edition of the Met Gala was the third time El Conejo had attended the fund raising function for the Met's Costume Institute. The dress code this year was "Garden of Time". The theme for the traditional fashion exhibit that is showcased during the event was "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion."

Bad Bunny seemed to combine both titles and showed up dressed in a custom-made outfit by John Galliano for Artisanal Maison Margela. His outfit was full of symbolic and cultural references; he wore a navy blue barathea wool jacket adorned with black grosgrain lapels. The stitching on the jacket was unusual; it looked reversed, giving an avant-garde touch to his attire.

He also wore a gigantic blue beret and tiny dark glasses. As for footwear, he wore goat-shaped shoes, which further enhanced the eccentric and fairy-tale theme of his outfit. To add a personal touch and a nod to his heritage, Benito carried in his hands a black maga flower, also known as the Puerto Rican hibiscus, the national flower of Puerto Rico, symbolizing the island's courage and resilience.

According to Maison Margela, "The flora inside the bouquet tells a story all its own: there are Flor de Maga, the national flower of Puerto Rico; roses, a symbol of beauty and purity; and the flax plant, which Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on in the famed fairy tale."

The whole outfit presented El Conejo as the prince of a very Latin fairy tale. Through his career, Bad Bunny has made it clear that he is not willing to change for the so called crossover. So far, he hasn't needed to do it.

La Met Gala in Spanish

Bad Bunny later revealed that, under the jacket, he was wearing a black satin corset "No puedo respirar, (I can't breathe)," he said to fellow Boricua Lala Anthony, who for the second time in a row was the correspondent on the staircase for Vogue.

But the complaint about the undergarment wasn't the only thing that Benito Martínez, his real name, told Anthony. For the first time in Met Gala history, they conducted the interview mostly in Spanish, with the correspondent remembering to translate from time to time. The exchange was a testament to Bad Bunny's commitment to his culture, his language, and his island of Puerto Rico, one of the big loves of his life.

The exchange didn't go unnoticed by Latinos on social media. It was one of those moments, like the Bad Bunny´s hosted SNL episode, in which the mainstream media in the U.S. went bilingual just for him, and they were better for it.