While the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour’s clay court swing is in full force in the German capital this week, across the pond Venus Williams was making headlines walking the red carpet rather than the red clay.
The elder Williams sister shed the track suit look in favor of a more refined taste on Monday night, attending the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The annual event, held in New York City, is a major cultural, artistic, and celebrity-driven event on the Big Apple’s social calendar.
Wearing a bronze fitted bodice strapless dress with a gathered train, Williams smiled for the cameras alongside Andre Leon Talley, Vogue’s Editor at Large, who draped himself and Williams in an oversized red cape, custom made by Chanel.
After walking the red carpet and mingling among the throng of celebrities, which included a who’s who of Hollywood’s elite, Williams found herself at the Nina Ricca after party with designer extraordinaire Karl Lagerfeld, model/mogul Kimora Lee Simons, Blood Diamond’s Djimon Honsou, Leon Talley, and Vogue’s fashion icon and Roger Federer’s No. 1 fan, Anna Wintour.
Other guests at the Gala included Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, John Mayer, David and Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Lopez, and Marc Anthony.
The event, which benefits the Museum of Art, is an exhibition of “movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear to reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body,” according to the Met. The exhibition will be open to the public from May 7 until September 1.
Williams has been off the tour since April, when she lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. Meanwhile, she has spent some time with her boyfriend, pro golfer Hank Kuehen, during her time off, accompanying him on the golf circuit.
The hiatus, her agent Carlos Fleming says, was due to preventative measures taken for knee and shoulder injuries and not anemia, a condition from which she was reported to be suffering since last year when she failed to compete in the Year End Championships, reports Tennisreporters.net.
Fleming also stated that she will compete at Rome next week and Roland Garros later this month.