It would have been understandable — even natural — if the attendees of Sunday night’s Grammy Awards had decided to go subdued. If they had opted to appear toned down and quietly respectful of the trauma still being visited on Los Angeles in the wake of the recent wild fires, in simple black suits and equally simple dresses. If they had limited their fashion statements to the little blue hearts worn on so many lapels in honor of the rebuilding efforts, the way host Trevor Noah toned down his jokes to focus on the fund-raising for fire victims. That’s really what everyone was expecting.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, they went big. They went, if anything, wilder and wackier — more L.A. — than ever before. Not just over the top, but over the top and around the bend. It would be tempting to criticize the dress as tone deaf, except it is also possible to see it as a highly public shout of defiance in the face of disaster; a refusal to give in to giving up and a celebration of the sheer glory of character. Or characters.

Doechi in three of the four Thom Browne looks she wore during the evening.Credit…Allison Dinner/EPA, via Shutterstock; Chris Pizzello/Invision, via AP; Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The Recording A

Chappell Roan made her entrance in a corseted Jean Paul Gaultier tulle confection from 2003, printed with images of Degas ballerinas, before changing into a robin’s-egg blue corseted Thom Browne number, before changing into a bow-bedecked Acne Studios frock to accept her award for best new artist. Lady Gaga donned a custom black leather Samuel Lewis gown with puffed sleeves and a voluminous skirt that made her look like a gothic version of Queen Victoria in mourning — not for Albert, but Altadena — and then switched it out for a similarly historicist Vivienne Westwood corseted look. Doechii offered up four Thom Browne versions of the not-so-little gray suit, culminating in one with a giant puffball of a pinstriped skirt.

Lady Gaga in custom Samuel Lewis.Credit…Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press

Sabrina Carpenter channeled olde Hollywood in an ice blue silk satin feather-trimmed JW Anderson negligee and a gold crystal mesh va-va-voom Versace column, as did Cardi B in sequined leopard Roberto Cavalli. Charli XCX wore 230 yards of shipwrecked Jean Paul Gaultier couture. Alicia Keys looked like Renaissance royalty in gilded Dolce & Gabbana.

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