After doing two press tours near-simultaneously for The Drama and Euphoria season 3, Zendaya is taking a break from the spotlight on Met Gala night. ELLE has learned the actress will not be at the New York City event on Monday.
She was photographed in Sherman Oaks, California, on Wednesday, supporting her partner, Tom Holland, at his Bero Padel Classic event. On Thursday, she was seen shooting a campaign for On in New York City.
Zendaya attended the Met Gala last year, dressing up in an all-white Louis Vuitton suit. Holland, meanwhile, has never attended the fashion event.
Zendaya recently spoke about her style evolution in a Vogue interview with her stylist, Law Roach. She started paying attention to fashion at a young age: “Something my parents allowed me to do when I was a kid was express myself through my clothes,” she recalled. “Once I was old enough to kind of decide what I wanted to wear, they kind of just let me dress myself, which was cool. So I wasn’t that kid who had the perfect matching outfit going to school—I kind of just picked whatever I wanted, starting in kindergarten, first grade. The Cheetah Girls was a major thing, so I wore a lot of leopard print—that’s not cheetah print, but I didn’t know the difference.”
She added, “I love when I see kids and they’re in a princess dress and rain boots—they’re just experimenting with clothes, and they are already figuring out their little personalities. I probably wore some very interesting combinations as an elementary schooler, but I think it was more about what made me feel confident and whatever color I was into, or my fixation at the time. It was nice, because it was before you really have an understanding that you’re being perceived by others because of your clothes—before you feel like you’re being judged for what you wear.”
She noted that now, teens have more access to social media than she did growing up. “I guess YouTube became a thing with me, and there was MySpace and Facebook, but it was nothing like it is now—thankfully, not all of my awkward outfits were documented, and there weren’t a bunch of tutorials or links to help me or decide who I was,” she said. “It’s just something that you had to figure out on your own. And I think that exploration is so important—it’s important to go through awkward phases; to look back at things you wore when you were a teenager and be like, ‘Oh my God, what was I thinking?’ Very few people are chic their whole life. It’s something that your taste and your personal preference develops as you get older. I’ve always been able to lean into experimenting with clothes, and I owe a lot of that to Law, obviously.”
