One startling difference at the 2016 Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala? The red carpet isn’t only red. Instead of walking up the traditionally crimson-covered steps into the NYC museum on Monday, May 2, celebs including Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian and more will tread up a colorful, red, pink and white carpet flanked by green hedges.
This year’s design resembles a double helix, perhaps a nod to the Met Gala’s theme, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.
But this isn’t the first time the steps of the Met have been altered for the Costume Institute’s annual soiree that dates back to 1948. In fact, the red carpet hasn’t always been a staple — it first appeared in 2007. Before that, it was just the naked concrete steps of the museum.
And who’s in charge of keeping the stairway — and everything else — spic and span? That would be Anna Wintour. According to an April 2 New York Post article, Vogue’s editor-in-chief isn’t above getting her hands dirty for the exclusive party. “We’d be in our gowns and picking up tables and sweeping the floors … if there’s garbage on the floor,” Vogue’s former head of events Stephanie Winston Wolkoff said of the gala’s clean up. “Anna does that, too.”
What do you think of the new stair design?