When you think of the Met Gala, what’s the first image that comes to mind? If your answer is anything other than Rihanna decked out in her regal yellow, fur-trimmed Guo Pei cape, dragging an ultra-long train behind her, you’re lying. Without question, it’s the most spectacular anyone has ever looked at the Met Gala, the annual phantasmagoria of glitz and spectacle where the most outlandish sartorial dreams come to actual fashion life.
On May 2, celebrities, designers, upstart influencers and a horde of hungry photographers will descend upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s iconic front steps for this year’s go-round, undoubtedly with the goal of topping Rihanna’s Guo Pei triumph in mind.
The dress code, “Gilded Glamour,” is a bit of a puzzle, or perhaps it would be if not for the timely premiere of The Gilded Age, HBO’s Downton Abbey-esque ode to the moneyed major players of 1880s Manhattan. Fans have fallen in love with the rich colors, voluminous silhouettes and dramatic hairstyles showcased on the show, prompting costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone to sit for several interviews-worth of period explanation.
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“Women spent a lot of time on their clothes and there was an incredible and varied amount of dressmakers,” Walicka-Maimone told Tom + Lorenzo. “There [were] a lot of European styles mixed in, there was a lot of money to be spent on the clothing. And women did change several times a day. What we discovered from pictures is that there were personal styles. You very rarely find two things that look alike. There were fringes and roses and bows, beads and feathers, you name it.”
In other words, the Gilded Age is exactly like the high fashion world today. How exactly did we arrive at this moment of synergy?
When 2020’s Met Gala was canceled amidst the terrifying early days of the pandemic, gloomy aesthetes wondered if the Oscars of Couture would ever return from purgatory. Return it did, in unconventional fashion: 2021’s reduced-size Met Gala took place in September, rather than the traditional first Monday in May; it also celebrated part one of a two-part exhibition at the Met’s Costume Institute, which has been designed to roll out over 2021 and 2022.
Part one of the exhibition, titled In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, included around 100 different men’s and women’s ensembles from a range of different designers working from 1940 to the present. The exhibition was organized rather existentially, with certain sections representing themes like “Affinity,” “Belonging” and “Consciousness.”
A spokesperson for the Met said that part two, In America: An Anthology of Fashion, should be seen as a preface to Lexicon. Anthology will focus on American clothing from the late 18th to mid-20th centuries, and nine film directors, including Martin Scorsese, Chloé Zhao, and Sofia Coppola, have been tapped to create fictional vignettes or “freeze frames” inspired by the clothes in the exhibition.
Since its inception approximately a century ago, the Met Gala has always functioned as a means to raise funds for the Costume Institute, but it wasn’t until the 1970s and the consultancy of Vogue editor in chief Diana Vreeland that the lavish party really began to carve out a mythos unto itself. Vreeland was the pioneer who first assigned themes to the Gala in tandem with exhibitions, and Vreeland was also a champion of conjuring weird vibes.
Social climbers at that time were used to stodgy society dinners, so Vreeland gave them a Gala where you took an elevator downwards into a den filled with ambient music and mannequins masked with stockings. She also encouraged the attendance of prominent personalities in pop culture, a legacy very much continued by Anna Wintour, editor in chief of American Vogue since 1988 and perhaps the fashion world’s most famous figure.
Curator Andrew Bolton handles the content of the Costume Institute exhibitions, while Wintour draws on the potency of her megawatt clout to make the event as illustrious as possible.
“Anna works out what sponsors would be appropriate for the exhibition,” Bolton told Vogue France in 2020. “Sometimes I have an idea, and it’s less of a big idea or popular idea, which is not terribly appealing to sponsors.”
It’s estimated that Wintour has drummed up as much as $200 million for the Costume Institute over the years, and her zeal for finalizing the Gala’s top secret guest list is said to be just as potent as her fundraising efforts. (The Daily Beast reached out to Condé Nast and Wintour for comment.)
The dress code for the 2021 Met Gala was “American Independence,” a highly open-ended prompt that produced a random-seeming spectrum of looks. Supermodel Joan Smalls opted for clean-cut Ralph Lauren, repping a classic American brand responsible for shaping the legacy of tidy, East Coast chic.
Others went for candy-colored Valentino, a safe choice that has absolutely nothing to do with America or independence. Musician and ex-Elon Musk paramour Grimes, who can always be relied upon to disregard the assignment, went for an intergalactic, Dune-inspired look and accessorized with a sword.
Overall, 2021’s results were mixed and a little dull, and some Met Gala fans aren’t very excited about this year’s proceedings either. “The theme is basically ‘rich and boring,’” a fashion observer said of “Gilded Glamour.” “And the ‘host committee’ and expected guests are very middle of the road, no-risk-taking celebrities.”
The benefit is set to be co-chaired by Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, a roster of friendly faces that indeed feels chemically engineered not to offend. Plus, given speculation that Rihanna’s due date falls sometime in late April or early May, it’s unclear whether the unofficial queen of the Met Gala will make an appearance. But all is not yet lost.
As we’ve learned from past instances of TMZ-fueled chaos, even if the outfits at the Met Gala leave something to be desired, the combination of celebrities in close quarters and alcohol has produced spectacular drama in the past. Take Solange Knowles attacking Jay-Z in an elevator at the party in 2014, or Taylor Swift dancing with Tom Hiddleston at the apex of the media’s frenzied scrutiny of her dating life.
Fashion historian Keren Ben-Horin, co-author of the book She’s Got Legs: A History of Hemlines and Fashion, sees direct parallels between the “Gilded Glamour” Met Gala and the Vanderbilt Ball, an 1883 New York costume party that permanently disrupted the intersecting worlds of high class society and outré dressing.
“Maybe the most famous gown from the Vanderbilt Ball was the Electric Light dress, which actually had a mechanism to produce light,” Ben-Horin said. “One of the other guests wore a hat with a taxidermied cat on it. It was really over the top, and during that time period in general, we can see a lot of referencing and recreation of 18th century French court dress.”
What did 19th century Manhattanite interpretations of 18th century styles look like? According to Ben-Horin, Gilded Age corsets were slightly longer and more bust-enhancing than their predecessors, and voluminous bustles tended to distribute more to the sides, rather than the back. Rich, elaborate fabrics and dramatic hairstyles rounded out the ladylike look.
Rich guys in 19th century New York embraced the silhouettes of their courtly forebears, but eschewed the bright palettes favored by the French in favor of more neutral hues. The 2022 Gala’s dress code also requires gentlemen to adhere to white-tie, a designation which traditionally calls for an exquisitely formal full evening tailcoat.
The corporeally restrictive, high-difficulty and unapologetically flamboyant “Gilded Glamour” dress code seems to fly directly in the face of the satrorial norm of the last few years: pandemic-approved, three-day-old sweats. While going all out is encouraged, perfectly literal interpretations aren’t necessary.
“Hopefully, we see Justin Bieber and Balenciaga create a baggy but flattering wealthy industrialist ensemble,” said Chris Black, a fashion brand consultant and co-host of “How Long Gone,” a cultural commentary podcast. “Lil Nas X in a structured gold body suit with a matching top hat” would also strike the right notes. “Westwood and McQueen are the archetypes,” Black added. “Don’t tell Machine Gun Kelly.“ (Kelly, real name Colson Baker, has a sense of style that some might describe as polarizing).
Personally, I’m not as concerned about Megan Fox's pop punk fiancé as I am about Billy Porter, an actor and stylistic statement-maker who tends to dominate the conversation on the red carpet with his over-the-top looks. Porter dressed as a sun god for the 2019 Met Gala (dress code: Camp), so there’s a good chance he could show up to this year's fête in costume as Cornelius Vanderbilt’s steamboat.
If tasked with styling a star for this year’s Gala, Ben-Horin would “bring the underpinnings out, so the corsets and bustles and all those structures that, in the 19th century would have been under the dress to give the garment its desired shape, are on display.”
The “Gilded Glamour” dress code could also be functioning as a nod to the origins of the Met itself, since the museum was founded 152 years ago in 1870. Over the past few years, the museum has attempted to correct its past wrongs via the restitution of ill-gotten artifacts, the banishment of the Sackler family name, and promises to reckon with its participation in racial injustice. But such efforts weren’t always a priority.
“The Met was created within that time period when cultural institutions really defined what it means to be elite in New York,” Ben-Horin. “Within that framework, it will be interesting to see what people [at the Gala] do with the idea of exclusion.”
