Fashion’s biggest night of the year is back and reclaiming its date for the first Monday in May. For the past two years, the Met Gala has had to adjust to the pandemic. The event was canceled in 2020 and took place in September of 2021 instead. Taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Met Gala is a yearly fundraising event for the Museum’s Costume Institute.
The themed event is organized by Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour. This year’s theme, “In America: An Anthology of Fashion,” is part two of last year’s “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.”
The theme has coined the term “Gilded Glamour.” Vogue even provided a quote from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence: “Everything about her shimmered and glimmered softly, as if her dress had been woven out of candle-beams, and she carried her head high, like a pretty woman challenging a roomful of rivals.” So, I would say it is safe to assume shine, luxury and extravagance will be embodied this first Monday of May.
The Gilded Age of New York took place from the 1870s through the 1890s. It was a time of swift industrialization and dramatic shifts in American society’s culture. Skyscrapers and mansions took over Fifth Avenue and new technologies like the light bulb and the telephone were on the rise up. Alongside this, the richer got richer and reveled in their luxury while poverty skyrocketed elsewhere. With industrialization, came easier and faster access to things including fashion. It seems as if the theme is referring to the lavish lifestyle of the time to be represented on May 2, however, the theme is up to interpretation as long as the guests stick to the white-tie dress code.
The event itself is held privately, but the red carpet is publicly streamed and always highly-awaited. We never know the guest list for sure until the day of, but this does not stop the expectant gala enthusiasts from conjuring up their own assumptions. Being fashion’s biggest night, one of the most exciting elements besides finding out who is going is what and who they are wearing. You never know how the designers and guests will wind up interpreting the theme.
This year’s co-chairs are Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Regina King and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Blake Lively’s past Met Gala looks have tended to draw the right type of shock by sticking to the theme in an ambitious way. One example was her look from the 2018 Met Gala theme, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” She has built herself up to be one of the most anticipated faces at the event over the years. Her history as a star of past Met Galas makes her role as one of the chairs that much more valuable.
The Met Gala itself is one of the most anticipated events of the year—the Super Bowl of fashion as said by André Leon Talley–and this year is no exception. After the long wait, I would say the suspense has truly built up. Since 1948, the event has truly evolved with the world, not to mention, the fountain of inspiration that the red carpet exhibits. After two years, fashion’s biggest night is back to its regularly scheduled programming.
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