Everything You Need to Know about the 2024 Met Gala
By Fiona Flowers
December 8, 2023
Image Credit: Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash
The first details of the 2024 Met Gala were announced through a press conference with The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) and Vogue on Nov. 8, taking social media by storm as fashion enthusiasts prepare for the first Monday in May.
Coined as fashion’s biggest night of the year, the event serves as a pinnacle of celebrity and pop culture year after year, bringing together figures deemed socially relevant to raise money for The Costume Institute at the MET in New York City.
Scheduled for May 6, 2024, the gala will mark the opening of The Institute's new exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”, which will double as the theme for the event. While more information on the dress code is yet to be released, the exhibit will feature 250 fashion items spanning over the past 400 years, with pieces from designers including Hubert de Givenchy and Christain Dior. Visual simulations including AI and CGI will be employed to preserve garments considered too delicate to be physically worn again. The exhibition will be open from May 10 to Sept. 2, 2024.
“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion will explore notions of rebirth and renewal, using nature as a metaphor for the impermanence of fashion,” said the MET in a press release from Nov. 8.
With ticket prices averaging around $35,000 per guest and tables going for anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000, the gala annually rakes in millions of dollars in funding for the MET as A-list names gather to socialize. Cell phones are prohibited inside the venue to provide discretion, lending the event a sense of secrecy and sophistication rare in celebrity culture since the debut of social media.
Historically, guests are expected to arrive at the venue dressed to the assigned theme and are often accompanied by the designer of their garments. The interview circuit before the event tends to revolve around fashion and design decisions made on behalf of the guest, and generates buzz on social media, especially since Vogue began live streaming celebrity entrances for the public to watch for free.
Notable Met Gala themes from the past few years include “Camp: Notes on Fashion” in 2019, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” in 2018, “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” in 2016 and “China: Through the Looking Glass” in 2015.
Andrew Bolton, the current head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Met, told Vogue that the exhibit will honor historic pieces of fashion that influenced art or society in some manner.
“Fashion is one of the most emotional artistic forms because of its connection to the body,” he said. “It is imbued with memory and emotions, and we relate to it very much via our senses.”
With the announcement and subsequent social media posts, the Met Gala has already begun to garner buzz nearly six months in advance, with Instagram, X, and TikTok users already making predictions regarding the guest list and fashion decisions. More information is expected to be released via Vogue and MET press releases as the date draws closer.
Coined as fashion’s biggest night of the year, the event serves as a pinnacle of celebrity and pop culture year after year, bringing together figures deemed socially relevant to raise money for The Costume Institute at the MET in New York City.
Scheduled for May 6, 2024, the gala will mark the opening of The Institute's new exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”, which will double as the theme for the event. While more information on the dress code is yet to be released, the exhibit will feature 250 fashion items spanning over the past 400 years, with pieces from designers including Hubert de Givenchy and Christain Dior. Visual simulations including AI and CGI will be employed to preserve garments considered too delicate to be physically worn again. The exhibition will be open from May 10 to Sept. 2, 2024.
“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion will explore notions of rebirth and renewal, using nature as a metaphor for the impermanence of fashion,” said the MET in a press release from Nov. 8.
With ticket prices averaging around $35,000 per guest and tables going for anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000, the gala annually rakes in millions of dollars in funding for the MET as A-list names gather to socialize. Cell phones are prohibited inside the venue to provide discretion, lending the event a sense of secrecy and sophistication rare in celebrity culture since the debut of social media.
Historically, guests are expected to arrive at the venue dressed to the assigned theme and are often accompanied by the designer of their garments. The interview circuit before the event tends to revolve around fashion and design decisions made on behalf of the guest, and generates buzz on social media, especially since Vogue began live streaming celebrity entrances for the public to watch for free.
Notable Met Gala themes from the past few years include “Camp: Notes on Fashion” in 2019, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” in 2018, “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” in 2016 and “China: Through the Looking Glass” in 2015.
Andrew Bolton, the current head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Met, told Vogue that the exhibit will honor historic pieces of fashion that influenced art or society in some manner.
“Fashion is one of the most emotional artistic forms because of its connection to the body,” he said. “It is imbued with memory and emotions, and we relate to it very much via our senses.”
With the announcement and subsequent social media posts, the Met Gala has already begun to garner buzz nearly six months in advance, with Instagram, X, and TikTok users already making predictions regarding the guest list and fashion decisions. More information is expected to be released via Vogue and MET press releases as the date draws closer.