Met Ball 2012: The style verdict Lisa Armstrong: 'The Met Ball is normally the most lavish of affairs with the most lavish of costumes, this year, there were a number of dresses on the red carpet that looked oddly familiar.' Had the heady whiff of revolution wafted over from the French election in time for the Met Ball on Monday night in Manhattan, held in honour of Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada? Whatever the origins, an aura of restrained contrition - albeit faint - hovered over proceedings. Normally the most lavish of affairs with the most lavish of costumes (the Oscars clearly only gets secondary pickings nowadays), this year, there were a number of dresses on the red carpet that looked oddly familiar. Had Donna Karan bleached last year's one shoulder, crimson dress and, in a superior demonstration of upcycling, handed it on to Ashley Greene (Twilight alumnus and current face of DKNY)? And did Renée Zellweger, in a reverse gesture of frugality, dye last year's cream backless dress? SEE: Met Ball 2012: The fashion pack at the Costume Institute Gala Sadly, gestures are all these proved to be. Last year's Zellweger frock was by Carolina Hererra, this year's by Pucci. But one should admire the sentiment. The French, sticklers for classics that they are, would appreciate these women (and in the case of Marc Jacobs, who donned a lace variation of his favourite tube dress, men) sticking to what they know, even if, in the case of Beyoncé, what they know could do with some booster lessons. READ: Marc Jacobs at the Met Ball 2012: 'I just didn't wanna wear a tuxedo and be boring' Anna Wintour, the undisputed Queen of the Met Ball, who had to preside over not one, but two nerve-jangling photo-calls (one at 5pm, the second on the red carpet), had clearly taken a leaf not from the sans-culottes ' manifesto, however, but from Marie Antoinette's, with two outfits, one defiantly festooned with white mink and a large predatory crustacean (a nod to the lobster which Dali painted onto one of Schiaparelli's frocks in 1937). Even though the Peta revolutionaries did not leave a dead racoon on her plate this time, there are no eyewitness accounts of her eating cake. As a happy coda to the evening, it was announced that the house of Schiaparelli, owned by the Tod's group, would be relaunching 58 years after financial travails forced it to close. Let the civil war over its next creative designer commence. SEE: Met Ball 2012: Celebrities at the Costume Institute Gala