What I Would Have Worn to the Met Gala

The Met Gala is an annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Typically, designers, models, and celebrities gather in over-the-top themed looks to celebrate a new exhibit from the Met’s Costume Institute. Past themes have included religion, camp, and punk. While the themes are usually fairly broad, it is expected that attendee’s dress in related avant-garde looks, often with the designer of their costume as their date for the night.

The Costume Institute debuted the first of a two-part exhibit in 2021 after almost 2 years, postponed well past its usual early-May date. Part one, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion”, opened on September 18 at the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Met, and marked the Costume Institute’s 75th anniversary. Part one of the exhibit included pieces from Christopher John Rogers, Sterling Ruby, Prabal Gurung, Conner Ives, and Andre Walker.

Part two, “In America: An Anthology of Fashion”, returned to it’s regular first Monday in May time slot, having opened May 2, 2022 in the American period rooms of the museum’s American Wing. Curators worked with American film directors to create stunning cinematic vignettes of different historical times in American fashion. One of the intentions for this exhibit is to focus on inclusivity, and to address the question, “Who gets to be American?”

Building upon the first installment of “In America”, the new exhibit aims to provide a historical context for the former, spotlighting individual tailors, dressmakers, and designers across thirteen rooms. The head curator of the Museum of Modern Art’s Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton, expressed that the exhibit would spotlight the talents and contributions of well-known designers, as well as some who may have been forgotten or overlooked as time went by.

The dress code for this year’s gala was “Gilded Glamour” and “White Tie”. While attendees were encouraged to approach late 19th century clothing through a modern lens, many of them, disappointingly, all but bucked the “Gilded Age” theme.

MY FAVORITES:

Victor Glemaud in H&M, an homage to Andre Leon Talley

Though many of the looks we saw on the Met carpet were beautiful, there was almost a disrespectful attitude towards the party’s theme. The Gilded Age of America marked a time of extravagance and opulence. It was a time of rapid economic growth following the transformative “Reconstruction Era”, when big business and industrial revolution had taken over in America. There were many critiques of this theme choice, as the Gilded Age represented a time of major wealth inequality and corruption. It was a very unique time for fashion and I personally feel that there was no shortage of missed opportunities on this year’s Met Gala carpet. While I may feel like we were shorted on Gilded-inspired looks, the blatant disregard for the theme by some is exactly the attitude of the era they refused to represent.