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NEW YORK – Hello on the first Monday of May.
The Met Gala, the biggest night of the year in fashion, is returning to its usual place on the social calendar this year following the pandemic upheaval. And if it feels like one of those moments anyway, it is.
Less than eight months have passed since the last gala, an annual fundraising event that raises eight figures for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Before the pandemic, nearly 600 A-lists were invited from fashion, sports, music, film, TV, technology and beyond. This year and last year, their number approached 400. The 2020 premiere has been cancelled.
More than $16.4 million was raised last year. The starred event is the institute’s primary budget feeder.
This year’s gala coincides with the opening of the second part of a two-part exhibition focusing on American fashion and style at the Costume Institute. The outfit of the night is gilded glamour and white tie during the Gilded Age, the turbulent period between the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century, known for its robber barons, drama and glory.
This year’s march at the Met’s Grand Staircase brings the premiere back to its legendary bed on the first Monday in May, with the official livestream on Vogue’s website.
Vogue’s Anna Wintour has been running the premiere since 1995. She continues as one of the honorary co-chairs of the night, along with designer Tom Ford and Instagram’s Adam Mosseri. The official co-chairs of 2022 are Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The cost of a seat at last year’s Met Gala started at $35,000, although some attended for free. Celebrities are sometimes accompanied (and paid for) by the designers who dress them or other companies that invite them. This year’s focus on inclusivity in fashion may celebrate and include more unnamed designer heroes than ever before.
The event is the invention of the late Eleanor Lambert, who was once a fashion publisher as powerful as Wintour. In 1948, the Met needed to find a way to pay for the newly formed Costume Institute, the only department required to raise its own funds.
While many on Wintour’s carefully selected guest list adhere to the dress code, others go their separate ways. Comment is everything. Think Rihanna in a papal hat, Billy Porter as a sun god carried on a stretcher by shirtless men, and Lady Gaga peeling off her layers as the fashion world comes to a standstill to watch.
Gala also serves as a twisted time capsule of love gone wrong for celebrity couples who fail. Ye, Kim Kardashian and former Kanye West, first joined in 2013. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes joined in 2008. Jennifer Lopez joined with Marc Anthony in 2011, followed by Alex Rodriguez in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Ben Affleck last joined him from the inside, walking alone years later.
Charlize Theron and Sean Penn were among the “it” couples invited in 2014. Selena Gomez and The Weeknd appeared together in 2017.
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