Fashion’s biggest night of the year will commence on May 2, where the theme is “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.” Every year, icons of the art world and celebrities of Hollywood will take inspiration from art pieces to design and create costumes to wear on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s red carpet. The evening’s co-chairs are Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and honorary co-chairs are Tom Ford, Adam Mosseri and Vogue’s Anna Wintour. Their purpose is to design the evening’s ambiance through the guest list, food and atmosphere.
Background
The Met Gala is an annual charity event that fundraises close to seven figures for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This event of the season marks the opening of its annual fashion exhibition. The guest list is traditionally top secret until the evening before the event.
Established by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert in 1948, the Gala founded a method to raise funds for the brand new Costume Institute. This event was open only to the socialites of New York or members of the high society fashion industry. From 1948 to 1971, the event was held at the Waldorf-Astoria, Central Park and even the Rainbow Room. In 1972, fashion consultant Diana Vreeland turned the Gala into a glamorous, high-society event.
The Met Gala is the most exclusive social event globally and, in 2021, raised close to 17 million dollars for the art museum.
The central chairperson of the event, Anna Wintour, has transformed the gala into the exclusive event it is, from its high-profile celebrities to eye-catching art to exquisite food.
What does the theme mean?
An anthology is a published collection of art pieces or literary works. “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” means that the museum of art will present American fashion pieces through 13 rooms representing different periods in the American Wing. The Met Gala will feature outfits from women and men in the eighteenth century in vignettes throughout each room. The rooms will span from 1805 to 1915, including:
- A Shaker Retiring Room from the 1830s
- A nineteenth-century parlor from Richmond, Virginia
- A panoramic 1819 mural of Versailles
- A twentieth-century living room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
The objective is to display the complex, layered and fascinating stories of American domestic life with topics ranging from personal fashions to politics to cultural values and ideologies. The Met Gala will represent the American fashion identity in three-dimensional freeze frames to explain and discuss the American narrative.
“For In America: An Anthology of Fashion the museum will present American fashion pieces through 13 rooms representing different periods in the American Wing.”
Vogue
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Since the Met Gala is the event of the season, viewers will excitedly tune into the red carpet to watch their favorite celebrities and icons and specifically to see their interpretation of the theme through their outfits. Every year, there is debate on who had the best and worst costumes and who was on the guest list. Personally, I love watching the celebrity interviews explaining the journey and story of the outfit—like Anna Wintour explaining these iconic looks, and Iman’s Met Dress explained from sketch-to-reality. I am excited to see the interpretation of the theme from the A-list Hollywood stars and models to the fashion icons of the world. Some outfits to take note of, if they are on the guest list this year, will be Blake Lively, Zendaya, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid, Billy Porter and the Kardashian Clan. It takes a lot of work to create a work of art and, after all, fashion is wearable art.
Where and how can you watch it?
The live stream will kick off Monday, May 2 at 5 pm CT and will be broadcast live across Vogue’s digital platform and on their website. This year’s Vogue hosts are Vanessa Hudgens, Hamish Bowles and La La Anthony. It has previously been Liza Koshey, Emma Chamberlin and Keke Palmer. Next Monday, my roommates and I will be enthusiastically watching and noting the outfits of the night.