CNN —
The Met Gala returns to the Metropolitan Art Museum on Monday, May 5 and will attract a large number of celebrities to the historic New York museum for a Night of visits to the exhibition, dinner and glasses. But before, they will walk along the stairs in what has become one of the most important red carpet of the year.
last year’s fashion show (which included the translucent bird dress of Elle Fanning, the Tyla Time Arenas set and the spiny ray wool headdress between the creative responses to the theme of the “Time Garden”) will be followed, in 2025, by a lesson of lush costumes and black style.
The theme of this year’s Met gala is “to your measure”, in relation to the new and emblematic exhibition of the suit institute, “Superfine: black style tailoring”, which opens on May 10. The theme is chosen every year by Andrew Bolton, a curator in charge of the Institute of the suit. Monica Miller, professor and director of African Studies at Barnard College, will be the guest commissioner of the 2025 sample.
“Superfine” will celebrate black dandism from the 18th century until its resurgence during Harlem’s rebirth and its impact on current fashion. The Met Gala usually bases its clothing code on the accompanying exhibition, which celebrities (and their stylists) freely interpret on the red carpet.
The co -chants, who present the MET gala, are actor Colman Domingo, Formula 1 pilot Lewis Hamilton, the rapper to $ Ap Rocky and the musician, record producer and creative director of the male collection of Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams. They will collaborate with the chief editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour, to organize the event, together with the honorary co -president LeBron James.
The list of guests at the MET gala is always confidential, but some famous names have been revealed as assistants, in addition to co -chants. Earlier this year, the MET announced that it would reactivate a host committee for the evening, which will include Simone Biles, Angel Reese and Sha’Carri Richardson athletes; the musicians doechii, Tyla, Usher and Janelle Monáe; Ayo Edebiri and Regina King actors; Fashion Luminaires Grace Wales Bonner, Dapper Dan, Edward Enninful and Olivier Rousteing; and the artists Rashid Johnson, Kara Walker and Jordan Casteel.
A frenzy of arrivals and photographs of top -level celebrities, the part of the red carpet of the evening lasts a few hours, but it is the only thing that the public sees. Inside, guests travel through the exhibition, which opens to the public in the days after the gala, and drew. The use of telephones on the table and the seat plan is carefully prepared by Wintour, who has organized the gala since 1995. (Wintour has the “last word” about each guest, as previously reported by the New York Times).
Although the red carpet and later parties monopolize the most attention of the night, the gala is, above all, an event to raise funds, whose five -digit tickets raise millions of dollars for the museum every year: almost US $ 22 million in 2023, according to the book “Fashion’s Big Night Out”.
when did the Met gala start?
The Met gala premiered in 1948 as a charity event for the nascent Institute of the suit, organized by the fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert. It is said that the entries for the banquet cost US $ 50 each.
Over the decades, the gala has transformed from an industry celebration in external places such as Manhattan Rainbow Room to a first -class phenomenon. In the 1970s, the editor of Vogue, Diana Vreeland, positioned the gala as the inaugural evening of the main exhibitions of the Institute and invited the flower and cream of the fashion world and New York society. Wintour, his successor, has favored musicians, actors and figures of high profile entertainment, turning the gala into one of the most watched events of the year. In 2023, the LaunchMetrics software company discovered that the MET gala generated almost double “media impact value” (the monetary value of the advertising generated) for the brands that the Super Bowl, with US $ 995 million. Last year, the MET gala figure amounted to US $ 1.4 billion.
The first theme was “The World of Balenciaga” in 1973, linked to a retrospective of the designer Cristóbal Balenciaga; The event was attended by guests as Halston and Calvin Klein, according to “Fashion’s Big Night Out”.
The first themes included “Romantic and glamorous design of Hollywood”, “The glory of the Russian suit” and “The woman of the 18th century.” But the gala attendees remained mostly in conventional night costumes until the 2000s, when some guests began to have fun with the themes, and the Internet allowed more eyes to see the newcomers. The most memorable themes of the last decade include “China: through the mirror”, “Heavenly bodies: fashion and the Catholic imagination” and the divisive “Camp: fashion notes” thanks to celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Zendaya and the Kardashian-Jenner, who use the red carpet to mount a show. The theme “The Garden of Time” last year referred to a short story of 1962 of the same name of the British author JG Ballard.
Every year rumors run about who could be a non -pleasant person at the gala, either for some offense towards the event or to Wintour herself. But Vogue’s editor has only explicitly talked about a guest who “would never invite” in public: US President Donald Trump, whom he mentioned in the James Corden night interview program in 2017 when he was asked to mention names.
However, other previous guests have said goodbye, such as Demi Lovato, Zayn Malik and Tina Fey. In 2015, five years after his appearance at the event, Fey declared in “Late Show with David Letterman” that the gala was a “fool parade.”
“If you had a million arms, all the people you would like to hit around the world, they are there,” he said. “That is, I was there. It was clearly one of them.”
However, some celebrities retract. Gwyneth Paltrow described the “little fun” Met gala in 2013 and said “never” would return, but returned in 2017 (and 2019).
The guests at the MET gala have often broken the rule of not using social networks to offer a more sincere vision of who joins who and what happens behind closed doors. In 2017, this included smoking, because attendees such as Bella Hadid and Dakota Johnson were seen lighting cigarettes in the museum’s bathroom (for the anger of donors, as reported).
Despite what Jason Derulo’s meme makes you believe, neither he nor anyone else has fallen down the stairs. But some guests have had their problems: this year 11 years of the infamous fight between Jay-Z and Solange after the party are turned.
A last false step? Take the same outfit, of course. While it is said that Wintour not only organizes the guest list, but also influences its fashion choices, in 2023, Olivia Wilde and the ex -editor of Vogue China, Margaret Zhang, appeared with the same chloé violin dress in different colored palettes. The couple took it easy and shared memes on social networks about the incident. “Great minds,” Wilde wrote on Instagram. “If they are going to twist with someone, be @margaretzhang.”
