All the Exclusive Details on How Anne Hathaway Got Ready for the Met Gala

It's hard to rank all of our favorite gowns from last night's Met Gala into a countdown form, but if we were pressed to pick just one, Anne Hathaway's stunning Ralph Lauren number paired with her sleek hair and elegant makeup comes out on top as the look we're most eager to recreate off the carpet.

Her gorgeous skin and lush lashes stood out on their own, but didn't compete with the dramatic effect of her gown—a deliberate move by Hathaway's makeup artist Kate Lee. "It was all about the dress," she tells InStyle. "It almost looks like someone poured molten gold over her, and I didn't want to do too much makeup because I felt that it would conflict with the dress."

To play up the space age vibe, Lee opted to create a hyper-real complexion, framed by a perfect brow, and she gave InStyle an exclusive look at how it all came together! Keep reading to take a trip behind the scenes.

With skin as flawless as Hathaway's, you don't have to do much to impart an ethereal glow. When Lee arrived, the star's face was already clean, so she applied a layer of Chanel's Perfection Lumiere Velvet ($47; chanel.com) to even out tone, then swept the Le Blush Creme de Chanel in Cheeky ($38; chanel.com) under the cheekbones as a slight contour. "I wanted her to look as modern as possible with almost alien skin, and be the perfect, polished version of herself," she says.

A small amount of the Chanel Soft Touch Eyeshadow in Taupe Grise ($30; chanel.com) was used to define the star's crease, then Lee went to work on the brows and lashes. "I'm so over the block brow. I like eyebrows to look like they're made of hair, so when I'm working on the brow, I'm filling in the sparsities until it gives the illusion of what's actually there," Lee tells us. "I may cheat the arch a little higher and extend it, but I still want to see each individual hair." The pro sharpened her Crayon Sourcils pencil in Brun ($29; chanel.com) to a point, and once she had sketched in each individual hair, she brushed the brows upwards with a clear gel.

A combination of Chanel's Inimitable Waterproof Mascara ($32; chanel.com) and individual falsies completed the eye. "They're predominantly Anne's lashes, but I've had my way with them," Lee says, laughing. "I put a few individuals in here and there. You can't get that natural effect with a strip lash."

As for the perfect neutral lip? That was Hathaway's own hue—save for the shiny clear gloss on top. "It's a crystal clear plumping gloss from Chanel, which launches in September, and I've been waiting for the right moment to bust it out. As soon as I saw the molten gold of the dress, I knew," says Lee, who used a nude lip pencil to shape the perimeter of the star's pout, and applied the gloss in the very center. "The most important thing to remember is that you don't put the gloss on your lip lines. It's very important to keep it in the center of the lip, otherwise it looks tacky. I think the crystal gloss with nothing underneath is what makes the look modern."

If the prepping suite sounds like a relaxed one to you, that's because it was. Hathaway's team gathered at New York City's Carlyle Hotel to get her ready, with hairstylist Anh Co Tran working on her sleek hair, and manicurist Alicia Torello lacquering up her digits. "When I arrived, Anne was having her nails done, and there weren't too many people there," Lee says. "She had just jumped out of the shower, and we got cracking—I knew exactly what I was doing, she knew exactly what I was doing, and it all happened. There was music playing, but nothing I can remember distinctly, so the vibe was very, very chilled." The zen-like atmosphere certainly translated onto the red carpet, as the star looked completely at ease in the midst of such a high-energy event.

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