Fall fashion so far? A feast.

Due to the pandemic and vaccine rollout, many major fashion events were pushed to later in the year and, now that it’s later in the year, we’re getting a year and a half worth of looks in one month.

September struck like the fairy godmother slipping celebrity Cinderella’s out of their quarantine tie dye sweatshirts and into looks a year in the making.

But with great highs always come great lows.

This pandemic year also wrought a new generation of internet stars in the form of TikTok influencers. While people scoffed at Charli D’Amelio at Fashion Week in February 2020, the past year and a half has been an incubator for TikTok fame and now many of her peers join her in prominent positions at high profile shows.

There are even rumors that many TikTok stars will be attending the highly selective slate of celebrities at the Met Gala this year — please God let the Addison x Beyoncé table seating rumors be fake.

But even if I have to endure Addison, Charli, or even James Charles, known groomer and rumored Met Gala attendee, on the red carpet, it might just be worth it if the looks from Venice Film Festival and New York Fashion Week are indicative of the looks we can anticipate for the rest of the season.

Everyone was serving — and even if it wasn’t good it was something! Anything! After so long deprived of high fashion, it’s euphoric to see celebrities stepping out of their ultra casual wear and into intricate inventions of some designer’s mind.

And yes, I’ll still be in my sweatpants, still in my bed, judging the details of items I’ll never be able to afford, but that’s what fashion is about! The spectacle, the performance, the wearer turned into an art piece to be critiqued.

So many looks of this season are already iconic. And so many long-awaited pairings have come to fruition on the red carpet.

Obviously we are talking about the highly anticipated Dune press tour, and more specifically, Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet. Like, c’mon. Our expectations were high. And the two surpassed them immediately and did not quit.

There was also giant fan speculation around the relationship between Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, whose press tour for A Marriage (not to be confused with the other film of an almost identical name and almost identical premise, Marriage Story) employed the same PR mastery as Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s press tour for A Star is Born.

That, plus the Bennifer Red carpet debut? All in gorgeous gowns with good, clean, low stakes drama? Nature is healing.

As if that weren’t enough, the VMAs took place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Sunday September 12th, offering up another occasion for sartorial spectacle. The night was overwhelmingly defined by experimentation and drama — with bold color palettes, dramatic shapes, and even props making their way to the carpet.

And as fashion week draws to a close and we all come down from the VMAs, the industry is in quick preparation for the Met Gala, the theme of which is ” In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” This year’s gala will see the incredible slate of hosts — in case you are nothing like us and somehow forgot, here’s the recap: Timothee Chalamet, Naomi Osaka, Amanda Gorman, and Billie Eilish — we’re looking back at some of the best looks of the season from the past week in anticipation of the Met red carpet.

Here are some of our favorites:

What we’re learning from the season so far: fashion is back and bigger than ever. It’s an age of experimentation, celebration of patterns and color, and form. The Met Gala better bring that same energy