A big night! After coronavirus delays, the Met Gala will continue its tradition of celebrating fashion on the first Monday in May — and the event’s secrecy continues to excite onlookers.
The annual gala was established in 1948 to fundraise for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. In 1999, Vogue’s editor in chief Anna Wintour took over as chairwoman, which paved the way for a more celebrity-focused event. The Met Gala is also one of the four days out of the year that the New York City museum is closed to the public, along with Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
The invitation-only night made its highly anticipated return in September 2021 after previously being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition created a two-part theme, the first of which was titled “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion. For the 2022 event, “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” will be the inspiration for attendees and their designers.
The head curator of the Museum of Modern Art’s Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton, previously opened up about the plan to focus on inclusivity in fashion.
“The stories really reflect the evolution of American style, but they also explore the work of individual tailors, dress-makers and designers,” Bolton told Vogue, referring to the exhibition’s exploration of various American periods. “What’s exciting for me is that some of the names will be very familiar to students of fashion, like Charles James, Halston and Oscar de la Renta, but a lot of the other names really have been forgotten, overlooked or relegated into the footnotes of fashion history. So one of the main intentions of the exhibition is to spotlight the talents and contributions of these individuals, and many of them are women.”
The Met Gala has often been the place for celebrity couples to make a statement with their fashion — and with their relationships. Ahead of the 2022 event, Kim Kardashian hinted that she might attend the big night with boyfriend Pete Davidson.
“You’re going to have to wait and find out. I think we’re still figuring it out!” Kardashian, 41, hinted during an interview with Access Hollywood in April.
During the premiere episode of her family’s Hulu show, The Kardashians, that same month, the the beauty mogul detailed the special meaning that the Met Gala holds for the couple. “I ran into Pete Davidson at the Met, and I was like, ‘I am so scared, I don’t know what I signed up for,’” Kardashian told the cameras, explaining how the comedian, 28, helped her feel comfortable before her October 2021 Saturday Night Live hosting gig.
The California native continued: “And he was like, ‘Can you read cue cards? You’re good.’”
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