NEW YORK (AP) — Billie Eilish went full glam in a huge peach ball gown at the pandemic-delayed Met Gala on Monday night, while fellow host of the evening Amanda Gorman was breathtaking in cobalt blue custom Vera Wang with a diamond laurel wreath in her hair.

Rihanna, ever the Met Gala queen, showed up late in a huge black Balenciaga look and hat accompanied by A$ap Rocky in a multicolored quilted coat from ERL. She wore over 267 carats of Bulgari diamonds, including two choker necklaces.

Co-host Timothée Chalamet raced onto Fifth Avenue to take selfies with fans before walking up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his entrance after a marching band and gymnast Nia Dennis kicked off the long-awaited evening. Last year’s gala was canceled due to the pandemic.

This year’s official theme of the fundraiser for the museum’s Costume Institute was “American Independence,” leaving plenty of room for interpretation. Just ask Lil Nas X, who did a Lady Gaga-esque strip tease on the carpet in gold Versace, from cape to armor to embellished jumpsuit.

Eilish, the belle of the ball, wore Oscar de la Renta. She told Vogue: “It was time for this. I feel like I’ve grown so much over the last few years.”

NEW YORK — “How do you define American fashion?” It was three years ago, and Andrew Bolton, the longtime curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, was pondering that question.

He knew he was going to do a major exhibit on American fashion in 2021 to coincide with the Institute’s 75th anniversary this year — and, as always, to launch the annual Met Gala.

But as he struggled to define American fashion, he now says, he realized that the whole point was NOT defining it — but rather recognizing and celebrating that it is many, many different things to different people.

“There are 100 different definitions of American fashion,” Bolton said this weekend as he showed a reporter around the new show, which opens to the public later this week. “We’re not coming up with a neat definition, because it doesn’t work! I’m trying to finding a new language or vocabulary to get people to think about it differently.”

Hence the title “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” part one of a larger “In America” show, which launches Monday’s “mini” Met Gala — a smaller version of the extravaganza that usually happens the first Monday in May.

Unlike past shows, this first part will last a full year, coinciding for several months with part two, “An Anthology of Fashion,” which will open in early May — when, everyone desperately hopes, a full-sized Met Gala can be held.