How the Met Gala Ushered in This Theme-Dressing Moment
Author Amy Odell explains how fashion’s biggest night paved the way for more risks on the red carpet.
Theme dressing has been top of mind for me lately, ranging from Zendaya’s Challengers tour to our own school costume party. Tonight is the ultimate moment for this style strategy: The Met Gala. The evening is the biggest night in fashion, a star-studded fundraiser orchestrated by Vogue’s Anna Wintour for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
The theme of this year’s exhibition, curated by Andrew Bolton, is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” The dress code is “The Garden of Time,” based on a short story by J.G. Ballard. The famous faces leading the carpet tonight are this year’s co-chairs: Zendaya, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, and Chris Hemsworth. Rounding out the VIPs are a pair of honorary chairs, tied to the evening’s sponsors: Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
To prep for the red carpet — and think about the Met Gala as a driving force behind this theme fashion moment we are in — I reached out to my friend, journalist . She is the author of two books, including the New York Times best-seller ANNA: The Biography (our past chat is here) and pens , a fantastic fashion Substack.
Below we dive into how Wintour turned the gala into a fashion spectacle and what that has meant for risks on the red carpet. Keep scrolling for Odell’s take on the “unobjectionable” theme this year as well as why the decline of fashion magazines has made the Met Gala more important than ever.
💭 Who are you looking forward to seeing on the carpet tonight? Any guesses on what the stars will wear? Please click below to share in the comments.
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Amy Odell on What the Met Gala Did for Theme Dressing
Please note: This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Let’s back up to start: What is the Met Gala and why is it so important, specifically to Anna Wintour?
Amy Odell: The Met Gala raises money for the Costume Institute, which is the department within the Metropolitan Museum of Art that exhibits clothing of museum significance. It could be fashion from fairly recent runway collections or something Abraham Lincoln wore, as they displayed back in 2022.
The Met Gala is overseen by Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue and chief content officer of [Vogue’s parent company] Condé Nast. It is one of the most important things that she has done in her career. She organizes the party — and charges an exorbitant amount of money — to raise money for the Costume Institute.
[EH note: Around 400 people are expected to attend this year, reports the Associated Press. Prices have soared to $75,000 a ticket, up from $50,000 last year, according to CBS MoneyWatch. A 10-person table starts at $350,000.]
That money goes toward creating this extraordinary collection, which is regarded as the very best in the world. And they need the money because preserving and exhibiting costumes is not the same as art, like a painting or a sculpture that you can put out and leave there. These garments require a lot of care, a lot of expertise. There is a reason these exhibits are short, because you can only exhibit things for so long and then you have to put them away.
What has Anna done with the gala?
She turned it into a pop culture event, whereas previously it was a society event. Rich Upper East Side socialites would buy tickets — and they were much cheaper in the 80s — and they would go to dinner. It was much less extravagant, a sort of insular New York City thing.
At the time Anna started planning it in the 1990s, they needed someone to take it on who was a neutral party. The thinking was you couldn’t have a designer do it because the designer would be biased. They thought that a magazine editor would be the right person. Liz Tilberis the editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, planned one. [EH note: Diana, Princess of Wales was a friend of hers and attended in 1996.] Maybe the thinking was that they would alternate between editors? But Liz died [in 1999 of ovarian cancer] so it ended up being Anna. And Anna turned it into this fabulous Super Bowl of red carpets that we see today.
“The Met Gala really changed what stars felt like they could get away with on the red carpet.”
It seems to me that Anna has made it a much bigger spectacle, while also reinforcing this idea that fashion is art.
At the Met Gala, people are wearing things that are “capital-F” Fashion. That’s different from the Oscars, where the thinking for a long time was to not take any risks, to get on the best dressed list, and to look like somebody who could fit into any role. Actresses used to be very wary of wearing anything that could be perceived as out there. They didn’t want to be typecast. They wanted to be seen as blank canvases.
The Met Gala asks people to do the opposite: Make a real fashion statement. I think that idea has seeped into red carpets more broadly. Look at Zendaya at the Challengers events, where she’s just dressing tennis. People love it! The Met Gala really changed what stars felt like they could get away with on the red carpet.
Who decides who goes to the Met Gala?
Anna. One of the former planners told me she would come up with a few hundred names and then sit with Anna and start crossing people off. It’s somewhat collaborative. Let’s say Versace is buying a table and they want to bring Anne Hathaway, because she is the face of the brand, and Cillian Murphy, because he is another face. Anna is not going to quibble about that.
What I learned while reporting my book was that people would request to bring their licensee from a flyover state, or someone’s mom, and then the answer would be no. Say you are an executive at a fashion house and you are going, it’s not guaranteed you’re going to be able to bring your husband.
How do people get dressed for the Met Gala? Does Anna really choose everyone’s outfits?
That’s one of my favorite questions. There is this misconception that Anna Wintour is maniacally controlling what everybody wears. Actually, she deputizes some people on her team to help with that.
Some of the stars do want the help from Vogue — and Vogue will help them, because if you are going and you are not promoting a project, then you might not have a stylist. People go to the Vogue office and the Vogue editors will help them pick something out.
Let’s dive into the theme of the Met Gala — and how that differs from the dress code for the night.
The theme is about the exhibition. This year, the theme is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” That refers to the fact that they are pulling some of the most delicate garments from the Costume Institute archive and exhibiting them. These are things that should never be worn and, in some cases, are too fragile to even be hung on mannequins — so they will be lying in cases. That’s why it is called “Sleeping Beauties.”
The dress code connects back to the exhibition. When it’s an exhibition about Alexander McQueen, it’s kind of obvious, right? You’re supposed to wear McQueen or something inspired by McQueen. It is a little bit confusing this year. The dress code is “The Garden of Time.” I think we could see a lot of garden- or time-inspired things.
“[The theme] gives people something against which to judge the dresses.”
Why do you think there is a theme? What does it add to the Met Gala?
It gives people something to talk about — but really what it does is it gives people something against which to judge the dresses. A common thing I think you see people critiquing is, “Oh, well, that person didn’t get this theme.” I am sure Anna knows that and picks the dress code accordingly. If you look back at Vogue’s slideshow from last year with all of the looks, it asks: “Is this look on theme?” And you can choose “yes” or “no.”
Why do you think they chose this theme this year?
There has been a lot of controversy in recent years. Karl Lagerfeld, who was last year’s theme and exhibition subject, was very, very controversial. I was actually a little bit surprised that they picked him. Before that, it was “Gilded Glamour,” which was a nod to the Gilded Age and American fashion. It seemed little bit off color as we were coming out of the pandemic, with people really clued into income inequality. And then to have Kim Kardashian on the red carpet wearing Marilyn Monroe’s dress and appearing to maybe damage the dress?
It seems to me they tried to pick something that would be unobjectionable this year. Exhibiting the best and rarest pieces from the Costume Institute’s collection — what’s the controversy there?
The world does feel like it has been on fire lately. Does the Met Gala feel like a display of excess?
I wouldn’t dispute that. Obviously there are always issues of greater import in the world. But fashion is an escape. People need entertainment. I think this is entertainment. A lot of people want to go home at the end of the day, look at their phone or the live stream, and be amused for a little bit. I think that’s okay — and I think it’s fine to critique these events and think about what they mean.
What does Vogue get out of this?
At the recent NewFronts, where the media companies brag about their online shows and try to get ad dollars, Condé Nast was all about live events like the Met Gala. They leaned into it so hard — Anna Wintour was hyping the roach that went viral last year.
[EH note: WWD covered this roach in a story on April 30. “Even the Met Gala cockroach, which became a viral flash-in-the-pan when it crawled onto the red carpet at last year’s event, earned a nod amidst the company’s push to promote itself as a repository of live, unscripted digital moments,” writes Marisa Guthrie. “Introducing a clip of Vogue’s marquee events, Wintour reminded the assembled audience to keep an eye out for her ’favorite [six-legged] surprise guest’ from last year’s Met Gala.”]
Can they keep up the excitement?
It’s getting harder for them to outdo themselves. But they continue to draw eyeballs. It is the Super Bowl of red carpets. I don’t think there’s anything that tops it, not even close.
How does the guest list fit into this idea? It feels like one or two people are always invited as clickbait.
Anna does have very strong ideas about what she deems “glamorous” and “not glamorous.” She did not want the Hiltons to go for years, even when the Hiltons were the biggest thing. Last year, Paris Hilton went for the first time, wearing Marc Jacobs. She put Kim Kardashian on the cover of Vogue in 2014, after Kim had been at the Met Gala with Kanye West the previous year.
There are so many examples, over the course of her 30-plus-year career, of Anna picking people who she knew would be kind of controversial or raise eyebrows.
This year, everyone is waiting to see Lauren Sánchez, who is engaged to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
A source told me that Anna has been nurturing this relationship with Lauren — and Jeff — and she knows exactly what she’s doing. I don’t think Anna gave Lauren advice for the Japan State Dinner at the White House, but I was told that Anna is helping her with the gala.
Anna is methodical and there could be other reasons that she wants to keep these people happy, aside from the media interest that it will generate at the gala.
[EH note: For more, check out Amy’s post, “Lauren Sánchez’s Met Gala Debut”]
What is the future of the Met Gala?
Every year, they want to raise more money. The question is: How can they keep raising more money?
The evolution, for me, is where does it go after Anna? She is turning 75 this year, which is so extraordinary — it’s remarkable to me that she is doing everything that she’s doing. But she can’t do this forever, obviously. It will be interesting to see who is the next person to run this event, and somebody else’s vision for it.
More broadly, what do you make of this theme dressing moment we are in? What does it mean for fashion?
What it says to me is the fashion media has been totally destabilized. You have to wonder what the purpose of it is anymore. We used to look to Vogue and all these magazines to tell us what was in style. They would come to a consensus, and then we would all know. That doesn’t happen — because people don’t look to magazines anymore. They look to all different people, from creators on TikTok and Instagram to Taylor and Beyoncé. People are getting funneled into different silos that speak to them.
It’s a really good moment for self-expression. That’s kind of wonderful — it doesn’t really feel like it’s possible to wear the wrong thing. There are almost no trends. Everything is in style. And in the sea of anything goes, theme dressing is some guidance: Here’s something that you can wear. Because people want help getting dressed.
Going back to the Met Gala, this is why the event really matters to Vogue as a business and a cultural entity and why, I think, it outshines the remaining fashion magazines. Because if we’re not looking in these places to tell us what to wear, what are we looking at them for? We know why we’re looking at Vogue — we want to see this every year.
My thanks to Amy! You can follow her on Instagram at @InstaAmyOdell and pick up a copy of her New York Times bestseller, ANNA: A Biography, at your local independent bookstore as well as on Bookshop and Amazon.
💭 Who are you looking forward to seeing tonight? Any predictions for the fashion? Please share in the comments.
PS: Don’t assume it will be all soft floral gowns. I loved this BBC article by Rosalind Jana about “The Garden of Time,” the piece by J.G. Ballard that inspired the dress code.
“This is a short story in which the last bastion of rich, refined beauty — with its classical music, rare books and its lovely clothing — is overrun by a working-class mob,” she writes. What might that mean for the night’s fashion? “Depending on the bent of your imagination,” Jana says, “those visions may err towards tidy blooms or overgrown thickets, perpetual splendour or the endless cycles of death and growth so necessary for even the smallest pocket of paradise.”
Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.
Why oh why is Kim Kardashian dressed like a librarian in a cold office? (Which is basically me.)