Rihanna attended the ‘Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations’ Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight (May 7) in New York City.

RiRi also attended the event in 2007, 2009 and 2011.

The Costume Institute Gala (or Costume Institute Ball), known as the Met Ball and nicknamed the “Oscars of the East Coast”, is an annual ball that celebrates the annual opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s (The Met) fashion exhibit at the Costume Institute.

UPDATE: We’ve also added more pictures when she was spotted leaving her hotel and arriving at the MET Afterparty.

The red carpet evening where celebrities arrive dressed to impress is described as the fashion industry’s “Night of Nights”. Fashion industry experts and style magazines consider the event, which is hosted by Vogue, to be the fashion world’s best red carpet event. It is regarded as the top annual social event in New York City. The event has been an annual affair at the Met since 1948 (the year in which the Costume Institute was founded), but it has been held in different parts of the museum over the years.

The Met’s Spring 2012 Costume Institute exhibition, Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, explores the striking affinities between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, two Italian designers from different eras. Inspired by Miguel Covarrubias’s “Impossible Interviews” for Vanity Fair in the 1930s, the exhibition features orchestrated conversations between these iconic women to suggest new readings of their most innovative work. Iconic ensembles will be presented with videos of simulated conversations between Schiaparelli and Prada directed by Baz Luhrmann, focusing on how both women explore similar themes in their work through very different approaches.

The exhibition will showcase approximately ninety designs and thirty accessories by Schiaparelli (1890–1973) from the late 1920s to the early 1950s and by Prada from the late 1980s to the present. Drawn from The Costume Institute’s collection and the Prada Archive, as well as other institutions and private collections, signature objects by both designers will be arranged in seven themed galleries: “Waist Up/Waist Down,” “Ugly Chic,” “Hard Chic,” “Naïf Chic,” “The Classical Body,” “The Exotic Body,” and “The Surreal Body.”

Schiaparelli, who worked in Paris from the 1920s until her house closed in 1954, was closely associated with the Surrealist movement and created such iconic pieces as the “Tear” dress, the “Shoe” hat, and the “Bug” necklace. Prada, who holds a degree in political science, took over her family’s Milan-based business in 1978, and focuses on fashion that reflects the eclectic nature of Postmodernism.

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