The first Monday of May is considered by many (including myself) to be a national holiday. It’s the Met Gala! The curiosity of what celebrities will be wearing, who will be the best dressed and who will completely miss the mark when it comes to the theme always keeps audiences gawking at their phones and refreshing fashion publications. However, the Met Gala wasn’t always as anticipated as it is today. What is now a crucial day for the celebrity and fashion obsessed was once simply just another affair.
At the end of the 1940s, society was fresh off the end of World War II and Americans were feeling optimistic for the future. New York experienced a post-war boom, and American art and fashion began to thrive on their own. The Costume Institute (originally founded in 1937 as the Museum of Costume Art) served as a fashion hub — providing collections of dresses for film and theater designers — and eventually merged with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1946. Initially independently funded, the institute needed a way to raise money, and so, as both a fundraiser and a celebration of the opening of its annual new exhibit, the Met Gala was born.
On Dec. 18, 1948, socialites were invited to wear their most formal attire and attend a midnight dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, which cost a measly $50 (worth $660 today). Eleanor Lambert, publishing genius and founder of the gala, soon christened the event “The Party of the Year.” Almost two and a half decades later, in 1972, former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland became a consultant to the Costume Institute and permanently shifted the event to the Met, making this so called party bigger than ever before.
That same Diana Vreeland also presented the brilliant idea of theming the gala, further introducing a new sense of abstractness and creativity by giving each gala a unique vision to differentiate it from those that came before. Legendary celebrities soon began to take part, with former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis serving as the co-chair of the gala in 1976 and 1977. Current Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour later took over as gala chair in 1995, and in 2001, the event’s date was solidified to occur on the now-iconic first Monday of May.
Today, the modern day Met Gala has evolved into a diverse occasion, bringing together timeless celebrities with freshly faced newcomers and influencers and being distinguished as the most important event of the fashion calendar. Regardless of who Anna Wintour opens the doors to, the gala still manages to maintain its privacy and exclusivity, with limited cameras allowed and a no-phone rule once guests have entered the venue — what happens at the Met stays at the Met.
What originally started as a social event for the wealthy of New York has now taken on the additional role of being a global event for audience entertainment, keeping us on the edge of our seats as we await critical commentary from the carpet each year. The cliquey nature of the event still remains, with the Gala itself being invite-only and tickets costing more money than most people have ever seen in their lives. Yet through interviews and other avenues of virtual access, outsiders are able to glimpse inside the gala, at least in part. And so, year after year, spectators get one step closer to feeling the sensation of being a true Met Gala attendee. This May, I’ll be watching “The Party of the Year” from the comfort of my childhood bedroom through the eyes of my laptop — but maybe, someday, I can dream of being there myself.
SHEI Features Writer Tessa Valera-Castro can be reached at tessavc@umich.edu.
