Lupita Nyong'o: Wearing Heartbreak On Your Sleeve

The look felt like an embodiment of the concept of accepting heartache and choosing to move on.

How does one dress up for a charity gala night when there are wars happening around the world, innocent lives are being lost, and you are personally dealing with grief over a break-up? It’s hard to be focused on your own personal pain, as seemingly small as a heartbreak, when two countries are fighting with each other and people in the world are grieving over lives lost.

Hollywood Actor, Lupita Nyong’o recently stepped out to attend the GO Campaign Gala 2023 in support of a non-profit that helps orphaned and other vulnerable children. Wearing a long white cloak-like gown featuring a low v-neck and a mid-slit, and with a cowrie shell head piece, she looked ethereal.

Nyong’o recently shared on Instagram about her heartbreak (in which she also acknowledged the world atrocities) and how she’s trying to embrace the pain instead of running away from it. “I am tempted to run into the shadows and hide, only to return to the light when I have regained my strength enough for me to say, ‘Whatever, my life is better this way,’” she wrote. “But I am reminded that the magnitude of the pain I am feeling is equal to the measure of my capacity for love. And so, I am choosing to face the pain, cultivating the courage to meet my life exactly as it is, and trusting that this too shall pass.”

This gala night is her first public appearance since that statement and what an appearance it is! It felt like an embodiment of that statement, visualizing the concept of accepting heartache and choosing to move on, through clothing.

Talking about this look, fashion and culture critics, Tom & Lorenzo said, “There’s something almost baptismal about the purity and simplicity of the gown, which might have come off a little too low-key for pictures on its own, but when you pair it with that dramatic and powerful cowrie shell head piece, she’s giving goddess, she’s giving priestess, she’s giving queen.”

Dealing with personal issues and emotions when you’re a public figure is something only few can relate with. Everything becomes a performance of some kind. Even when you’re a relatively private person, which Nyong’o is, people can’t help but project their own feelings onto that public figure. But as a person who regularly communicates through fashion, this appearance felt very personal on her behalf. A performance, sure, but one holding emotional weight.