Fashion Forward in Comfort at the Met Gala After working the cocktail room at the Met gala last night, I dropped into the Temple of Dendur to see if dinner guests were comfortable in their $20,000 seats, or whatever one costs these days. I ran into Julie Gilhart, the former Barneys fashion director, who had a manicurist apply the letters AMAZON.COM to her nails. Amazon wants to play with the high-fashion people. Then Alber Elbaz of Lanvin came over and introduced his date, Emma Stone. Her red minidress looked like the rippled surface of a flowered bathing cap. Can I touch it? "Sure, go ahead," Ms. Stone said without hesitation. I squeezed the plastic hem. "It's rainproof," Mr. Elbaz said, unnecessarily. Everyone was tucked into his or her seat at the long dining tables. There was little elbow room - it was almost economy-class seating - m and I wondered where the women with trains had stowed them. They would surely have to sit with their feet planted in several yards of tulle or feathers. Some of the trains were so wide and stiff that during the crowded cocktail period you had to work up a plan of retreat if blocked by one. Crossing these hedges was not an option. The clothes were not more elaborate this year, but the Surrealist spirit of the Schiaparelli-Prada exhibition had seemingly encouraged a great deal more sequins, beads, embroidery and shapes verging to sculpture. Here and there, in dark suits, were the tall spikes of athletes, and the thin sliver of Cate Blanchett in a black feathered McQueen dress, with tiny, elongating pencil lines at the corners of her eyes. Once or twice the actress contently patted her flat tummy, and then headed toward dinner with the sureness of a woman whose dress or Spanx will never be in her way. A number of women - Miuccia Prada, Stella McCartney, Phyllis Posnick of Vogue - wore pants. This was a nice change. But for sheer comfort and ventilation, there was Marc Jacobs's black lace shirt dress (Comme des Garçons), worn with white boxers and his own pilgrim-buckle shoes.