Met Gala was just yesterday but all Social Media and News have been invaded by this event for almost a week.
But do you really know what is behind all the celebrities’ looks displayed during the Red carpet?
I was not aware of the importance nor the exclusiveness of the Met Ball until I deep dived into Fashion a couple of years ago, and I think it is important to understand the history and the original purpose of the event besides of all the media coverage it drives.
- The Costume Institute Gala also known as the Met Gala, has been celebrated since 1948 to raise funding for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. The event was started by the publicist Eleanor Lambert as a philanthropic endeavor for the great and good of New York society.
- The Costume Institute is the only department at the Met that has to finance its own activities, therefore the Gala is its biggest fundraiser. This year’s tickets were $30,000 apiece, and tables were around $275,000.
- Although it has been held every first Monday of May since 2005, it used to be celebrated in different dates before like: late April, late November or early December.
- Current Vogue’s editor, Anna Wintour, has chair the event since 1999. The former event’s Chairwoman was Diana Vreeland, also Vogue’s editor at the time.
- Some of the most memorable and exotic exhibitions Diana Vreeland curated were: “The Glory of Russian Costume” in 1976, “La Belle Époque” in 1982 and “The World of Balenciaga” in 1973.
- A theme to set the tone for the formal dress of the evening is chosen each year to introduce the Costume Institute exhibition. This year’s theme was Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between.
- The Met Gala is a super exclusive invitation-only event, with around 600 attendees each year. To get invited you need to get Anna Wintour’s personal approval and either be an important celebrity, singer, actor/actress or be a collaborator, donator or sponsor of the event.
- In an effort to keep the event private an intimate, social media and cellphones were officially banned since 2015 Met Ball. Of course, there are still celebrities like Kylie and Kendall Jenner that do not mind breaking the ban and keep posting bathroom selfies on Instagram.
