The Met Gala 2024: “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”
Fashion’s Super Bowl has finally arrived. On May 6, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will host the 2024 Met Gala in celebration of fashion’s history. The yearly benefit is one of the biggest calendar events in the industry, as actors, musicians, artists, and celebrities don their most fantastical visions through costume and dress. Last year was all about classic Karl Lagerfeld, and this year is sure to bring the fantastical.
The Exhibition
The 2024 Costume Institute exhibition is titled “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion“. The exhibition is designed to showcase various masterpieces from fashion history, specifically ones so fragile that they can never be worn again and are, therefore, sleeping beauties. Featuring around 250 pieces from the Institute’s permanent collection, many of the items have rarely been seen in public. By utilizing cutting-edge technologies, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and CGI, the Costume Institute intends to revive the sensory capability of these pieces. The revival of such will even go so far as to include sound and smell.
Using the natural world as a metaphor for the transience of fashion, the exhibition will explore the themes of rebirth and renewal. Through immersive activations, the exhibition aims to revive the historical pieces– to evoke the smells, sounds, textures, and movements of garments that can no longer interact with human touch. According to head curator Andrew Bolton, the exhibition itself will feature three main “zones” paying tribute to this natural world. A series of galleries will unfold upon entering the exhibition, each exploring a different theme– Land, Sea, and Sky.
The 2024 Met Gala
To mark the opening of the exhibit, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City will host its annual Gala. The benefit, taking place on Monday, May 6, supports the department with annual funding for operations and exhibitions. With each guest assigned a specific time slot, the event will begin at 5:30 p.m. and end around 8 p.m. Or when the most fashionably-late guest arrives.
The event is made possible by none other than Anna Wintour, the Global Editorial Director of Condé Nast and Editor-in-Chief of Vogue. Since initially joining the cause in 1995, Anna Wintour has made the benefit the celebrity powerhouse it is today.
Each year, select celebrities are invited to plan and host the Gala alongside Anna Wintour and the Met. The 2024 Met Gala hosts will include Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth. Gwendoline Christie, La La Anthony, and Ashley Graham will co-host the event. The red carpet arrivals will be live across Vogue channels, including Vogue.com, TikTok, and YouTube.
The Theme
The 2024 Met Gala’s theme and dress code is “The Garden of Time”. As the exhibition explores the idea of decaying dress and the impermanence of nature, head curator Andrew Bolton found inspiration in a short story by J.G. Ballard.
Written in 1962, “The Garden of Time” features a Count and Countess who live in a walled estate of leisure and sanctuary. The estate overlooks a magical garden of crystalline flowers that possess time-reversing capabilities. Throughout Ballard’s works, the writer explores themes of dystopia in paradise—specifically, how paradise will inevitably be sullied and how attempting to maintain it is fruitless. A mob approaches the estate, threatening the safety of the walled sanctuary. To protect the estate’s serenity, the Count plucks a time-reversing flower again and again until he has plucked them all. The story ends with the mob breaching the estate, which has now become dilapidated and bare. The Count and his Countess stand still, and the two aristocrats turn to stone.
The story at its core, and therefore the dress code, is about fleeting beauty. The widely held interpretation of this so far is the “garden” aspect. Specifically florals. Many are sure that florals will be the go-to, especially as it was a trend across the runways for the Spring/Summer 2024 season. We saw old and new reiterations of florals, from Caroline Herrara’s classic take to Balmain’s sculpturesque works.
But the story can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. As the mob encroaches and the garden becomes bare, the Countess chooses to play Mozart and Bach on her harpsichord. In addition to the musical aspect, time is a huge theme of the story—specifically, its reversal and our lack of control over it. The guests and their paired designers could ignore Ballard’s story completely and delve into the exhibition itself, which celebrates nature in fashion.
Wrapping Up
However the guests and their designers choose to interpret the fantastical tale for the 2024 Met Gala, we’re excited to see it unfold. We’re even exploring our own interpretations at our publisher, luxury home decor brand, KOKET, and our e-boutique, My Object of Desire!
Words by Liz Wynne
Feature Image: Jennifer Lopez, Emily Ratajkowski, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Carla Bruni, and Penélope Cruz attend The 2023 Met Gala Celebrating “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo by Kevin Mazur and Mike Coppola/MG23/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
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