The Met Gala 2020 is just around the corner and excitement has hit fever pitch. The most exclusive and glamorous event in the fashion calendar is not only a huge night for show-stopping outfits, but for fashion fundraising too. Let us explain.
What is the Met Gala and when does it happen?
A few paragraphs in and you've probably noticed we've already called it Met Gala and Met Ball - but fear not, it all means the same. Although the night is most commonly known by the latter, the event is formally known as the Costume Institute Gala.
Happening every first Monday of May, the gala is a fundraiser dedicated to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute - formally named The Anna Wintour Costume Center, in homage to the American Vogue's editor-in-chief, who has been a chair member of the museum's gala since 1995. The night is centred on the theme of the new exhibition which this year will be Camp: Notes On Fashion.
The benefit founded in 1948 by publicist Eleanor Lambert was to encourage donations from New York's high society.
Who chairs the event?
Other than Anna Wintour, each year the event brings honorary chair members. The late Karl Lagerfeld and Gianni Versace were the first designers chosen to co-chair the night, in 1995.
Since then, among many designers and fashion insiders, the gala has also made room for celebrities (and even royalty) to participate: Caroline Princess of Hanover was a chair of the 2005 Met Gala, Beyoncé was a chair member in 2013, and last year the co-host are Lady Gaga, Alessandro Michele, Harry Styles and Serena Williams.
EVERYTHING ABUT THE MET GALA 2020
What is the Met Gala 2020 theme?
Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute, found inspiration for the Met gala 2020 theme and exhibition in the 1992 Sally Potter film Orlando, which was based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name. “There’s a wonderful scene,” he said, “in which Tilda Swinton enters the maze in an 18th century woman’s robe à la Francaise, and as she runs through it her clothes change to mid-19th century dress, and she re-emerges in 1850s England. That’s where the original idea came from.”
“About Time: Fashion and Duration,” says Bolton, will take a “nuanced and open-ended” approach. “It’s a reimagining of fashion history that’s fragmented, discontinuous, and heterogeneous.” Bolton plans to make us think differently about fashion history, by dividing 160 women’s garments into two sections throughout the exhibition. The first section will be a timeline of completely black looks: “It’s a very rational, regulated chronology of fashion from 1870 to 2020, the timescale of modernity.” The second section will focus mainly on white outfits with added pops of colour.
When is the Met Gala 2020?
The Met Gala takes place on the first Monday in May, which will fall on Monday 4 May in 2020. Red carpet arrivals expected to begin around 7pm EDT.
Where will the Met Gala 2020 take place?
The Met Gala always takes place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The night begins with a cocktail hour, which sees guests walk the red carpet and explore the new exhibition, before sitting down to dinner and the evening's performance.
Who is hosting the Met Gala 2020?
The Met Gala 2020 will be co-chaired by Nicolas Ghesquière, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, and Anna Wintour.
What is the Met Gala?
Organised and presided over by Anna Wintour since 1995, the Met Gala has become a much-loved annual celebration of fashion. Considered a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, it’s timed to mark the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibition. The most-visited yet? 2018’s Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition. Year on year, the event raises eight-figure sums; 2019’s edition raised a record $15 million (£12 million).
How many people attend the Met Gala?
Each year, the event hosts around 600 attendees.
How much does it cost to attend the Met Gala?
If you’re lucky enough to be on the guestlist then you don’t pay to attend. If you’re not on the list, but have managed to secure a chance of attending, tickets are priced at around $30,000 (£24,000) each, with tables costing about $275,000 (£215,000).
Who is invited to the Met Gala?
Until the evening before the event, the guestlist is top secret. But some of the biggest names in the business regularly attend – from Beyoncé and Lady Gaga to Madonna and Rihanna. More often than not, designers attend with their muses such as Marc Jacobs and Kate Moss, and Nicolas Ghesquière and Emma Stone.
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