NEW YORK (AP) – Well, hello the first Monday in May.
The biggest fashion night of the year, the Met Gala, to its usual dock on the social calendar this year after the epidemic turmoil. And if it feels like one of those moments that really is.
It’s been less than eight months since the last concertIt is an annual fundraiser that collects eight-figure sums For the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the pre-pandemic period, about 600 viewers of fashion, sports, music, film, television, technology and others were invited. This year and last, the numbers were closer to 400. The 2020 concert has been cancelled.
More than $16.4 million was raised last year. The star-studded event is the institute’s primary budget feeder.
This year’s event coincides with the opening of the second part of a two-part exhibition In the Fashion Institute Focuses on American fashion and style. The evening dress is gilded glamor and white tie, typical of the Gilded Age, that turbulent period between the Civil War and the beginning of the twentieth century known for its robber barons, drama and grandeur.
This year’s Walk the Grand Staircase at the Met brings the celebration back to its legendary pier on the first Monday in May, with Official live broadcast shown on Vogue’s website.
Vogue’s Anna Wintour has run the party since 1995. She continues as one of the co-hosts honorary for the night, along with stylist Tom Ford and Adam Mosseri of Instagram. The official co-chairs for 2022 are Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Lin-Manuel Miranda..
The cost for a seat at the Met Gala last year started at $35,000, though some attend for free. Celebrities are sometimes accompanied (and pushing their own tabs) by the designers they wear or other companies that invite them. The focus on inclusivity in fashion this year may lead to celebration and the inclusion of more unsung designer heroes than usual.
The event is the invention of the late Eleanor Lambert, a powerful fashion publicist as Wintour in her day. In 1948, she needed to find a way to pay for the newly formed Costume Institute, the only department in the Met that had to raise its own money.
While many of the carefully groomed Wintour guest list follow a dress code, others go their own way. Explanation is everything. Think of Rihanna in a papal hat, Billy Porter as a sun god carried by men without a shirt And Lady Gaga is peeling off layers while the fashion world is on hold to watch.
The ceremony is also a twisted time capsule of love that went wrong for celebrity couples who didn’t work out. Kim Kardashian Wei, the former Kanye West, first attended in 2013. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes went in 2008. Jennifer Lopez attended with Marc Anthony in 2011, then with Alex Rodriguez in 2017, 2018, and 2019. She was joined by Ben Affleck Recently after a year of walking alone.
Charlize Theron and Sean Penn were among the couples invited in 2014. Selena Gomez and The Weeknd appeared together in 2017.
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