Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth and Zendaya will join Vogue’s Anna Wintour as co-chairs of this year’s Met Gala, the magazine and the Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed on Thursday (Feb 15).
And the dress code? “The Garden of Time”, whatever that means in the imaginations of the star-studded crowd that will ascend the museum’s grand steps on the first Monday in May at the splashy benefit.
The dress code ties into the theme of this year’s May 6 gala, which aligns with the spring exhibition at the Met’s Costume Institute. This year’s theme is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”. The reference is not to the fairytale, though, but to treasured garments from the vast collection at the Costume Institute – some too fragile to hang upright. Museum curators will place them in glass cases, like Sleeping Beauty herself.
Curator Andrew Bolton, who masterminds the Met’s blockbuster fashion exhibits, said at a preview in November that he was looking for a way to literally breathe life into a collection of 33,000 pieces, many of which are never seen. He’s chosen about 250 of them, and will organise the show around themes of land, sea and sky.
The gala is a fundraiser for the Costume Institute, bringing in the bulk of its annual budget. To date, the event has raised more than US$223.5 million (S$300.8 million), according to the Met.
The carpet beforehand is one of the biggest pop culture spectacles of the year with stars like Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Billy Porter and Rihanna wearing outfits tailored to the night’s theme.
This is Bad Bunny’s third year at the gala and the first for Hemsworth. Lopez has been on the guest list 13 times and Zendaya five.
Honorary chairs are Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. TikTok is the gala’s sponsor, with support from Loewe.
The exhibit will run from May 10 to Sep 2, 2024.
