Tonight the internet will be broken again by the Met Gala and its red carpet. It will be hard to escape, so … what is it?
Let’s start in 1937 when the Museum of Costume Art was founded. Nine years later the Museum merged with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was renamed The Costume Institute.
In 1959, the Institute became a department within the Met. But 1948 was the first year of The Met Gala, a simple $50 a ticket fundraising dinner to benefit the Institute. These days, the Institute is the only Museum department that must raise its own funds.
Fast forward to 1972. Diana Vreeland, the iconic editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine (and Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar before that) changed the Gala into a themed party with enough glamour to attract A-list celebrities, but it was still mostly a traditional charity dinner. About 20 years later, the reins were taken by Anna Wintour.
Anna Wintour
Think perpetual sunglasses. Think The Devil Wears Prada, 1 and 2. Yes, the character played by Meryl Streep is based on Anna, an intimidating fashion force to be reckoned with. Some close to her say she is kind and funny, but then, that would ruin the movies.
She was born in London, and worked at Harpers & Queen and Harper’s Bazaar magazines before becoming Editor-In-Chief at Vogue in 1988. Only last year did she step down, and step up as Global Chief Content Officer and Artistic Director at Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Wired.
The Guest List
You can’t buy tickets online. There are no Chase Sapphire or American Express Experiences preferred tickets. You must be invited…by Anna Wintour. With her invitation, you get the privilege of paying $100,000 per seat this year, or if you wish, a table for $350,000, which will raise over $20 million for the Institute.
Tables are generally purchased by fashion houses and other companies. The purchasers can invite celebrities to sit at their tables, but Anna must still approve every one of the 700 guests. She said “sorry” to Donald Trump, sorry to the Kardashians for a number of years, and sorry to anyone-who-crossed-her. She curates the guest list like she would a fashion magazine issue; each guest must be culturally relevant. That relevance is reflected in the Gala’s media impact value for brands being double that of the Super Bowl.
Themes
Each year the Institute mounts a themed exhibition. The Gala is the opening celebration for the new exhibition, and is intended to drive visitors to see it. This year’s theme is “Costume Art,” which will explore the intersection of fashion and art, and will be organized by body types. Last year’s theme was the first to celebrate menswear, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” Each Gala has a guest dress code. For 2024’s “Sleeping Beauties” theme, the code was “Garden of Time,” requiring guests to wear florals and other nature motifs with references to the passage of time and decay (oh joy!).
Controversy
Themes are often controversial, as when 2015’s theme, “China: Through the Looking Glass”, raised concerns of cultural appropriation. The most controversial theme was 2018’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”
Costumes integrated religious vestments, halos, angel wings, and crosses. Some critics believed the fashion trivialized or mocked sacred symbols, and disrespected religious traditions. The debate became more interesting when people learned that the Vatican loaned more than 40 sacred objects to the exhibition.
The whole event stirs controversy. It will cost over $6 million to put on the gala this year. With its high ticket prices and an exclusive guest list, it raises the issue of elitism in the art world. It is even harder to shake that this year, when Jeff and Lauren Sanchez Bezos have contributed over $10 million as the lead sponsors. Talk about a billionaire’s ball.
Nicole Kidman, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, and Anna Wintour at tonight’s Met Gala
The Red Carpet
The only Gala event meant for the public is the red carpet. Inside there are no reporters, no phones or cameras. So we don’t see the guests touring the exhibition or sitting down to dinner and entertainment. A guest might sneak a selfie on social media, but I would advise against it. Anna is watching, and you never know if she is watching you from behind her sunglasses. Don’t take the chance of being “disinvited” next year.
The grand staircase leading from the street to the Met’s doors is enclosed to look like a room, a 154 feet wide and 13 feet high room covered in carpet, not always red, and filled with themed flower arrangements and other décor. Only the guests and credentialed press are in the room. The red carpet continues into the museum’s entrance hall. 
Diana Ross ascends the “red” carpet at the 2025 Met Gala
Guests don’t just emerge from their limos or Escalades and head up the steps. Their entrances are completely choreographed like a fashion show. They are given an arrival time and ascend in a planned order that spaces them, maintaining a flow of special moments for photos and video, and no overlap of the biggest stars. Can’t have Beyonce and Zendaya walking up at the same time. And, of course, the designers must be next to their fashion creations for photo ops.
Why the Met Gala Matters
So why does the Met Gala matter to art and the art world?
- It celebrates and raises money for a department of one of the world’s most significant art museums.
- It focuses attention on museum exhibitions, at the Institute and in general.
- It reminds us of the importance of funding museum exhibitions, research, and conservation.
But most importantly, it reminds us that fashion is also art. That clothing isn’t just functional. It reflects our culture, social structures, and history. And it is each person’s visual, aesthetic expression of who they are and how they want to be seen. A creative decision made each time we leave the house.
Something to think about when we get dressed in the morning.