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The Met Gala 2024 Theme Has Been Revealed – Here’s Everything You Need To Know
The buzziest global event in fashion is back for another year
By | 4 weeks ago
It’s arguably the biggest annual fashion gathering in the world, with celebrities from all over the world attending (dressed, of course, to theme) in celebration of New York City‘s beloved art museum. The Met Gala can only be described as spectacular, but it took a lot of planning to make it what it is today. Here’s everything you need to know about the event – as well as the upcoming 2024 Met Gala theme.
The Met Gala 2024: All The Details
What Is The Met Gala?
Established in 1948 by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, the Met Gala is an annual fundraiser held for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. Coinciding with the opening of the museum’s spring exhibition, the event asks guests expected to dress up based on the year’s exhibition theme in a formal and haute couture style – making it one of the most glamorous fashion events on the yearly calendar. Since 1995, the event has been co-chaired by Vogue editor-in-chief and pop culture icon Anna Wintour.
When & Where Is The Met Gala?
The Met Gala is held every year in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As per tradition, it is held on the first Monday of May, to mark the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibition – and the next gala falls on 6 May 2024.
Who Attends?
Unlike other charity events, the Met Gala is invitation only – and there’s usually a waiting list to get a ticket. The event is usually attended by celebrities and personalities spanning the arts, fashion, film, music, sports and high society.
What Is This Year’s Theme?
The theme for the 2024 edition of the Met Gala is Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. Now, this isn’t a reference to Disney princesses or fairy tales, but rather a celebration of around 250 garments and accessories in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection that are now too fragile to be worn.
The exhibition itself will feature original research, conservation analysis and diverse technologies which will bring these garments to life in a multi-sensory display, evoking the feeling of wearing these masterworks while highlighting the transience of fashion. The garments, which also share looks related to nature, will span four centuries of fashion history and be divided cross a sequence of self-contained galleries with themes inspired by the natural world – with a series of ‘sleeping beauties’ (garments that can no longer be dressed on mannequins due to their fragility) displayed in glass ‘coffins’.
‘The Met’s innovative spring 2024 Costume Institute exhibition will push the boundaries of our imagination and invite us to experience the multisensory facets of a garment, many of which get lost when entering a museum collection as an object,’ said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO. ‘Sleeping Beauties will heighten our engagement with these masterpieces of fashion by evoking how they feel, move, sound, smell and interact when being worn, ultimately offering a deeper appreciation of the integrity, beauty and artistic brilliance of the works on display.’
‘When an item of clothing enters our collection, its status is changed irrevocably,’ added Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge at The Costume Institute. ‘What was once a vital part of a person’s lived experience is now a motionless “artwork” that can no longer be worn or heard, touched, or smelled. The exhibition endeavours to reanimate these artworks by re-awakening their sensory capacities through a diverse range of technologies, affording visitors sensorial ‘access’ to rare historical garments and rarefied contemporary fashions. By appealing to the widest possible range of human senses, the show aims to reconnect with the works on display as they were originally intended – with vibrancy, with dynamism, and ultimately with life.’
Exhibition Info
When: May 10–September 2, 2024
Where: The Met Fifth Avenue, The Tisch Galleries, Gallery 899, Floor 2
BOOK: metmuseum.org
Met Gala Themes From The Last 10 Years
2023: Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty
Last year, the Met Gala placed a spotlight on German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, with an emphasis on his style signatures from the 1950s to his final collection in 2019. Many guests drew on the designer’s monochrome colour palette and elegant style, borrowed garments from Lagerfeld’s archives and even dived into his persona and personal lives with tributes to his cat, Choupette.
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2022: In America: An Anthology of Fashion
The second half of the Met Gala’s 2021 theme, In America: An Anthology of Fashion similarly focused on exploring fashion in the United States – but this time, with an emphasis on the 19th and 20th century. This was the year a lot of celebs turned up in period-inspired costumes (including host Blake Lively’s Statue of Liberty-themed dress), although a lot of the night’s buzz came from Kim Kardashian who wore a vintage Jean Louis previously worn by Marilyn Monroe in 1962 to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to President John F. Kennedy.
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2021: In America: A Lexicon of Fashion
The first instalment in the Met’s two-part American fashion theme, meanwhile, paid tribute to expressive qualities of the medium from the 1940s to present day. The night was defined by ultra-glamour, larger-than-life silhouettes and, in the case of Billie Eilish, sweeping ballgowns.
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2020: About Time: Fashion and Duration
Unfortunately, the 2020 Met Gala theme was never realised due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The event, which was cancelled, coincided with an exhibition inspired Virginia Woolf and 20th-century French philosopher Henri Bergson. The theme presented a timeline of women’s fashion from the last 150 years to celebrate the museum’s own 150th anniversary.
2019: Camp: Notes on Fashion
Bring together Anna Wintour, Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, Serena Williams and Alessandro Michele as co-chairs of the Met Gala and what do you get? Camp. This fun and mildly outrageous theme was all about the ways fashion could address irony, humour, theatricality and parody – and we were not disappointed. From Lady Gaga’s strip-tease fashion show (or, ‘a gown within a gown within a gown’) to Zendaya’s light-up Cinderella tribute, there was plenty of camp to be seen.
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2018: Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
A slightly controversial theme when it was announced, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination examined the evolution of fashion’s relationship with Catholicism. We saw plenty of halos, angel wings, stained glass and bejewelled crosses, as well as references to religious figures like the Pope, Joan of Arc (another brilliant Zendaya moment) and even the Vatican itself (kudos goes to Ariana Grande for this one).
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2017: Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between
Themed around the work of fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, the Met Gala’s 2017 theme celebrated the designer’s avant-garde approach – with guests similarly encouraged to challenge convention with their gala outfits. It was dubbed one of the trickiest dress codes ever due to theme bordering on haute couture and absurdity, but looks that came out on top included Rihanna, Gigi Hadid and Zendaya.
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2016: Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology
A theme that still remains relevant today, the 2016 Met Gala explored how fashion designed reconciled handmade (manus) and machine-made (machina) in the creation of garments – while raising questions on the distinction between haute couture and ready-to-wear. Glittering looks came from Beyonce, Blake Lively and Zoe Saldana, while Madonna donned a (revealing) Givenchy look that quickly caught the internet’s attention.
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2015: China: Through The Looking Glass
Taking a look at how China has fuelled the industry for centuries, China: Through The Looking Glass explored the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion – with an emphasis on Chinese costumes, paintings, porcelains, films and artwork. Rihanna, forever one to nail the Met Gala dress code, notably turned heads for wearing a trailing, golden yellow coat handmade by Chinese couturier Guo Pei.
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2014: Charles James: Beyond Fashion
Another designer-focused theme, 2014 celebrated the life and work of English-American couturier Charles James. More specifically, the theme highlighted James’s design process and his sculptural, scientific and mathematical approach to design – and how he continued to influence modern day designers.
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Featured image: “Tulipes Hollandaises” evening cloak, Charles Frederick Worth (French, born England, 1825–1895), textile designed by A. M. Gourd & Cie, textile manufactured by Morel, Poeckès & Paumlin, 1889;Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of the Princess Viggo in accordance with the wishes of the Misses Hewitt, 1931 (2009.300.1708). Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image: Nick Knight, 2023.
