Good morning. It’s Monday. The Met Gala, where money and power intersect, is tonight. We’ll look at why the event is important.
New York City’s biggest fashion event — the Met Gala, officially the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit — is tonight. You would know if you’re going. It’s an invitation-only extravaganza, and the guest list is a closely guarded secret.
The gala is an annual event, but this year, there may be more than the usual crowd of photographers and celebrity-watchers outside. Condé Union, which represents workers at Vogue — the fashion magazine run by Anna Wintour, who has been the mastermind of the Gala for 25 years — and other Condé Nast publications threatened to appear. “Condé Nast management: Meet us at the table, or we’ll meet you at the Met,” a post from the union said on X.
I asked Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times’s fashion director and chief fashion critic, to explain why a showcase for power from Hollywood, fashion and beyond matters to New York — and what to expect as the night unfolds.
Why is the Met Gala so important in New York?
I think it’s more than that. It’s global. You see that with designers flying in, celebrities flying in, powers-that-be flying in.
That reflects the pull of New York and also the pull of Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue.
She has been the chair since 1999. She first got involved in 1995 but for three or four years alternated the chairmanship with another fashion editor, Liz Tilberis of Harper’s Bazaar. The gala predated both of them, however. It had been created by Eleanor Lambert in 1948 to raise money for the Costume Institute.
But the Met Gala as we know it today, with this sort of stew of celebrity and money and glamour and extraordinary dress-up and peak eyeball — that’s Anna’s creation.
The money is — is “stratospheric” the right word?
It’s the perfect word. But the Met Gala’s reason for being is to ensure the health and continuity of the Costume Institute at the Met. This party provides the funds for its annual operating budget.
The deal when the Costume Institute joined the Met was that it would pay for itself. It is the only curatorial department at the Met that operates that way. Everything else — all the other departments at the Met — are covered in the museum’s budget. This is not.
But the Met Gala makes so much that they actually give some of it back to the museum.
Do you know how much?
We don’t. The party made $22 million last year. Prices have gone up this year. Maybe it will make more.
The prices are higher than they already were? How much?
The official price of a seat, according to the Met, was $50,000 last year. Now it’s $75,000.
But you can’t just calculate the total take by saying there are 400 guests and multiplying by $75,000. Brands buy tables, which this year start at $350,000. Celebrities, who attend as “guests” of a brand, sometimes make donations. And sometimes someone who bought an individual ticket will be seated at a table that was bought by a brand.
The jump in the “official” price beats inflation, doesn’t it?
It also beats every other fund-raiser for every other cultural institution by orders of magnitude. Nothing comes close.
Does that mean that the benefit set — the people who go to big-ticket galas — are back on the circuit? Is this another postpandemic milestone?
Well, certainly this party is setting records. But the money isn’t just a philanthropic investment because of the eyeballs involved. You’ve got the celebrities. The images — the photographs and videos from the Gala — go everywhere. That is worth a lot of money in what they call earned media value. It’s effectively advertising.
So the Gala has become a very effective marketing investment as much as it is support for a cultural institution. That’s unique in cultural fund-raisers.
That’s like the Oscars.
Yes, but it’s possibly bigger than the Oscars. They call the Met Gala the Oscars of the East Coast. I think that may actually be underselling the Met. It is one of the most concentrated distillations of culture shapers that exists.
And there’s homework, sort of. There’s a dress code based on a short story about a husband who tries to turn back time: “The Garden of Time,” by J.G. Ballard, who died 15 years ago. Had you read that before the Gala said it would be this year’s takeoff point?
I had not, though now I have, so thank you, Met.
I will say that of all the people I have spoken to about dressing the attendees, I have yet to find one who has read it.
Is that a metaphor for the Met and what the gala has done for the Met?
That is the question, isn’t it?
In 2021 Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a splash at the Met Gala with a custom Brother Vellies jacket dress with the words “Tax the Rich” printed on it. Has she been invited this year?
We don’t know. The gala is by invitation only.
We do know some of the attendees. We know Rihanna is going because she has announced it in British Vogue.
We can also make some fairly educated guesses. Ben Affleck may be in attendance because his wife, Jennifer Lopez, is a co-host. Maybe the actor Tom Holland will be there because his partner, Zendaya, is also a co-host.
We know that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift will not be there because they have announced their nonappearance, much to many people’s dismay. Everyone was very excited about the idea of Travis and Taylor at the Met.
What are you going to wear?
My pajamas. I will be watching the livestream from afar. Under New York Times rules, we can’t accept a free ticket, and $75,000 is beyond our budget.
What will the cockroach wear this year?
Ha. Last year a cockroach zipped across the carpet, while the photographers were waiting for Rihanna to arrive.
The dress code this year is “the Garden of Time,” which is in part about nature. The cockroach is part of flora and fauna of New York City. It can do the come-as-you-are look.
METROPOLITAN diary
Emergency bead work
Dear Diary:
It was September 1994, and my boss and I were headed back to our Midtown hotel after a business meeting.
I was wearing a long crystal-beaded necklace I had inherited from my grandmother. Getting out of the taxi, it got caught on the edge of a leather folder I was carrying, and the string broke immediately.
Horrified, I watched the beads come off and bounce onto the asphalt. It was rush hour, and there was no way to pick them up in the traffic.
Clutching what remained of the necklace to my chest, I followed my boss to the mezzanine bar. She was unfazed by my drama and wanted to drink and debrief.
Unable to focus, I went to a large window in the lounge and looked down. There were the beads, twinkling brightly on the street as cars zipped by.
I had to do something, although I wasn’t sure what.
“I’m going back down,” I told my boss. She sipped her Tom Collins and scowled.
Down on the sidewalk, I saw that the traffic had increased. My rescue mission felt impossible.
Then, in one magical moment, the street emptied of vehicles and became quiet. The rhythm of the avenue stoplights was suddenly on my side.
