The Met Gala: A Celebration of Fashion or Grotesque Show of Wealth?
The first Monday of May brought another Met Gala, this year’s edition paying homage to the life and legacy of Karl Lagerfeld. Created to fund the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the Met Gala has been dubbed “fashion’s biggest night out”, a reputation it lives up to in more ways than one: but when does big become excessive, and excess becomes tasteless, and tasteless just becomes uninteresting? The answer could be right about now.
Karl Lagerfeld: Nicolas Kantor / trunkarchive.co
Last year’s gala, themed “Gilded Glamour and White Tie”, unfolded against a backdrop of conflict and economic contraction, provoking widespread outrage with many describing the event as out of touch.
This year we awoke to endless posts of the same content: all-too-familiar faces parading extravagant looks of sequins, pearls and silk. We saw opulence in excess with the glorious revival of archival looks, reinterpretations of Karl classics, and a healthy dose of theatre from the likes of Doja Cat and Jared Leto – but the whole fanfare felt so predictable.
Exciting no longer means excess and extravagance; people get excited when the conversation is moving forward, and the Met Gala feels anything but forward-thinking. The Met Gala provides an opportunity to speak up about big issues but it seems Vogue prefers to gloss over them. 2019 was themed “Camp: Notes on Fashion”, but where was the representation of drag queens and queer culture in protest to anti-drag laws sweeping the US right now?
Mike Coppola / Getty images
Everything about the event screams exclusivity – the meticulously curated guest list, $50,000 ticket price, and the annual theme in celebration of a man known for his derogatory comments – but what place does exclusion hold in the era of inclusivity?
While we recognise the importance of some level of exclusivity when it comes to luxury in the fashion industry, it's crucial to strike a balance, especially with younger audiences. Luxury brands that have successfully navigated this tension, such as Jacquemus (everyone wants to know Simon and his crew with his Instagram presence and retail activations making it feel possible) and Glenn Martens’ Diesel (they invited the general public to their Milan Fashion Week show without compromising on cool) have made significant strides in engaging with a wider audience without diluting their brand identity. We believe that the Met Gala could benefit from taking a page out of their playbook.
If you ask us, the Met Gala is losing its shine.
For more commentary on the relevance of the Met Gala over the years, read Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz in The Cut, Maya Yang in The Guardian and Maybelle Morgan in Refinery29.
