What Happens Inside the Met Gala?
Here's everything to know about what goes on behind the closed doors of the most prestigious fashion event of the year.
The Met Gala has fully recovered from COVID-19. The annual affair returns to the first Monday of May after COVID-related postponements in 2021. With this year’s theme featuring a two-part exhibition, the first being In America: A Lexicon of Fashion (which opened on September 18, 2021) and the second In America: An Anthology of Fashion (opening on May 5, 2022), the 2022 Met Gala is, in many ways, a follow-up to last year's event. This year's theme explores American fashion's relevancy and power with the theme being "Gilded Glamour." Once again, the movers and shakers of the industry—from actors, artists, and models—will convene in fashion’s boldest looks as they ascend the Met steps.
This year's highly anticipated hosts are Regina King, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Hollywood sweethearts Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
Beyond the costumes and the celebrities that are donned in them, the star-studded event is a fundraising initiative for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute with tickets amounting to $30,000 and tables priced at $275,000. Yet what happens during the main affair remains unknown to many, so what do we know about the glamorous soirée?
The fashion-flaired event has been unofficially labeled as "the Superbowl of fashion" or "the party of the year," yet despite the amount of publicity the annual affair receives, only those who are invited know what goes on inside as media coverage is closely regulated.
According to a New York Times article by Vanessa Friedman on the Met Gala, guests are prohibited from posting from the intimate affair on social media as soon as they step off the red carpet. The rule, which has been around since 2015, didn't stop A-list celebrities from giving their followers a glimpse of the fashionable festivities happening inside the elusive event.
After photos are taken on the red carpet, a cocktail party ensues where guests are met with a receiving line of selected individuals to guide them throughout the exhibition. The main event consists of a dinner, which will be a chef-curated vegan menu this year. Guests are treated to special live performances with surprise headliners from Rihanna to The Weeknd to Cher, gathering everyone to the dance floor and enlivening them as they convene once again at the Met Gala after-party hosted by the biggest names in the industry from Alessandro Michele and Olivier Rousteing, to Harry Styles and Serena Williams.
Despite several attempts of leaking seating charts, invitation lists, and food menus, the team behind the Met Gala has done a tremendous job keeping the event planning under wraps and the main affair intimate for guests to enjoy. In 2016, the documentary The First Monday in May gave speculating fans an inside scoop on the event, but not enough to suffice one's inquiry. We can only hope that some rule-breaking from our favorite celebrities will feed our curiosity.
