What better way to start the beautiful month of May than having this year’s Met Gala fall on the first Monday? The annual fashion event commemorates the latest spring exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute in New York City, being the biggest opening night party and invitation-only fundraiser for the museum. Speaking of big, each ticket costs $30,000 and per table the cost is $275,000. There are usually 500-600 guests in total and each one is an A-lister who obviously can afford being there. Everyone in attendance gathers to admire the museum’s art pieces, celebrating the night with a fancy dinner and watching famous performers right from their seats. Celebrities from everywhere come overly dressed for the occasion, arriving with a famous fashion designer who created their look for the evening, while trying to nail the gala’s theme each year, as shown below.
This year’s theme is “Camp: Notes on Fashion”, inspired by writer Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, “Notes on Camp” – living theatrically in everyday life but with the utmost sincerity. This dress code is much different than previous years, since guests must think outside of the box and push themselves outside of their comfort zones in dressing up to fit the culturally diverse theme. The theme is not based off of a summer camp or nature camp, but it is instead described as ‘exaggerated fashion’ – it disengages from the typical style. The camp style is based on irony and questionable taste, and usually expressed as over the top, kitchy, and trash; all of these characteristics display it to be unique as ever. This kind of style is accompanied by a social and/or political statement, and recently publicized as ‘timely’ for its multi-cultural features.
The excitement isn’t just revolved around the top designers and celebrities dressing to face off for the best look of the night, it also previews the fashion exhibition that will be released to the public in a few days. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website, the spring 2019 exhibit will have more than 250 objects dating from the seventeeth century to the present, which explore origins of camp’s high to low spirit aesthetic. Susan Sontag’s, “Notes on Camp” is the foundation behind the examination of how “elements of irony, humor, parody, pastiche, artifice, theatrically, and exaggeration are expressed in fashion.” The institute’s highly anticipated fashion exhibit opens on May 9, 2019, and the museum will release sketches of pieces that can be expected to appear on that date.
High fashion and brilliant style were highlighted at the 2019 Met Gala. All thanks to Susan Sontag for her “Notes on Camp” piece, influencing the revelation of how fashion embraces camp sensibility and strengthens culturally diverse aspects throughout the past several decades.