The Loudest Met Gala Yet

NEW YORK — Anna Wintour’s nearly 30 years leading the Met Gala — the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute — has been an effort to prove fashion’s legitimacy as an art form.

This year, the Costume Institute declared that milestone accomplished, opening its new permanent home inside the museum, the Condé M. Nast Galleries, a 10,000 square-foot space located just off the Great Hall.

The corresponding exhibit, themed “Costume Art,” takes on a more literal interpretation of that idea, displaying garments alongside corresponding artworks. Rafaello Monti’s “Veiled Woman” marble sculpture was paired with a gauzy Maison Margiela gown as an example of the classical body, Vivienne Westwood’s beaded “Martyr to Love” jacket was next to Albrecht Dürer’s “Man of Sorrows” etching of Christ in the anatomical body section and a Burberry trench coat cut to fit Sinéad Burke, who has achondroplasia, was featured next to a 17th-century statue by Leonhard Kern of a woman with dwarfism, showcasing the disabled body.

The goal was to show that “fashion is art, not despite its closeness to the body but because of it,” said Andrew Bolton, curator in charge.

It’s all part of what is shaping up to be a big year for the Costume Institute. Beyond the new galleries, this year’s Met Gala raised a record $42 million, and Bolton confirmed to The New York Times that the Institute has set aside money raised from the gala each year, enough to build a “quasi-endowment” that will allow it to be self-sufficient by 2030 or sooner.

Just a few weeks ago, though, the Met Gala’s success didn’t seem certain. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and wife Lauren Sánchez Bezos’s roles as sponsors and honorary chairs drew backlash online and off; the activist group Everyone Hates Elon plastered posters calling for a boycott across New York. On Monday, the group projected videos of Amazon workers and slogans like “If you can buy the Met Gala you can pay more tax” on the Bezos’ Manhattan apartment building.

It’s the latest symptom of the growing frustration with fashion’s increasingly cosy relationship with tech billionaires like the Bezoses and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who attended the Met Gala for the first time this year. At a time of extreme wealth inequality when most of the public is squeezed by inflation, critics have slammed the couple’s outsized role at this year’s event as an emblem of a larger problem.

That tension was on display: At the same time that Wintour, Sánchez Bezos and Bolton gave their opening remarks at a press preview Monday morning, a group of labour-rights firms and Amazon workers led by The Service Employees International Union, Amazon Labor Union and the Teamsters gathered in downtown Manhattan for a protest, “The Ball Without Billionaires.” Another sign was the absence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who did not attend the event, telling local outlet Hell Gate he was focused on tackling issues related to affordability instead.

Still, the contention that dominated the weeks prior didn’t do much to disrupt the event itself. On Monday night, any sounds of protestors were drowned out by the regular chorus of cheers from observers gathered on the streets outside the museum as celebrities hit the red carpet.

The Red Carpet and Beyond

Designers looked to the halls of the museum when crafting looks.

Many stars went sculptural: Robert Wun put Blackpink’s Lisa and theatre producer Jordan Roth in dresses with sculpted arms, coming off the shoulders in Lisa’s case and sprouting from the back in Roth’s. Gap and Zac Posen dressed model Kendall Jenner in a twisted gown inspired by the sculpture of Nike, goddess of victory, in the Louvre. Rihanna’s Margiela look was inspired by Belgian medieval architecture.

Others took more specific inspiration. Madonna’s Saint Laurent look, which included the company of six assistants, drew from artist Leonora Carrington’s “Temptation of St. Anthony.” Cardi B’s dramatic, bulbous Marc Jacobs dress was inspired by the artist Hans Bellmer. Co-host Venus Williams’ Swarovski look was based on the portrait of herself by Robert Pruitt. Sánchez Bezos’ Schiaparelli dress was a nod to John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait of Madam X,” which fittingly depicted socialite Virginie Gautreau, who was married to a wealthy French banker.

Thom Browne, who also provided major support this year to the Costume Institute, put stars including Lindsey Vonn, Olivia Wilde and Adut Akech in looks that fit into the exhibition’s themes: the classical body, abstract body and pregnant body.

And some honed in on the body: Beyoncé wore an embellished, skeletal gown by Olivier Rousteing.

Meeting the Marketing Moment

For the luxury industry, which is mired in a yearslong sales slump, the Met Gala still represents the biggest possible stage to drum up excitement. It was also the first time the event had been staged since a slew of new creative directors took up their roles last fall.

For many, the night was less about flooding the carpet than dressing a few key stars who best aligned with their ethos. “Brands are thinking about their own stories they’re trying to tell with the people that they’re dressing,” said Benika Brown, global strategy director of agency Buttermilk.

Gucci, for example, dressed only a few stars, including Alex Consani, who appeared in the promotional video for Demna’s first collection for the brand, “La Famiglia.” Louis Vuitton, last year’s exhibition sponsor, dressed its newest ambassador, gold medal-winning figure skater Alysa Liu, as well as actor Tyriq Withers and musician Jay-Z.

One of the evening’s most visible brands was this year’s catalogue sponsor, Saint Laurent, who dressed longtime ambassadors Zoe Kravitz and Hailey Bieber, as well as “Heated Rivalry” star Connor Storrie and model Kate Moss.

Chanel and Dior showcased their new creative directions on the carpet — in one case, side by side: Nicole Kidman wore a sparkling and feathered red Chanel gown next to her daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, who was in a textured pink Dior gown. Model Bhavitha Mandava wore a couture version of the denim and quarter-zip look she made history in last year as the first Indian model to open a Chanel show, appearing on its Metiers d’Art runway. Chanel ambassadors Ayo Edibiri, Gracie Abrams and A$AP Rocky each wore outfits by the brand. Model Karlie Kloss wore a bulbous gown from Dior’s couture runway, and Sabrina Carpenter’s custom gown was made from film strips of the movie “Sabrina.”

John Galliano’s take on Zara also debuted on the Met steps. Musician Stevie Nicks wore a taffeta gown by the label, while Bad Bunny was dressed in a black suit, with makeup done to make him resemble an old man.

Smaller designers were able to land spots in large part through partnerships with tech companies. Instagram’s head of fashion, Eva Chen, said it was a priority for their table, while eBay and influencer monetisation platform ShopMy also helped connect designers with talent.

“The commercial endeavours [that go with building a business] don’t always allow us to flex our conceptual abilities,” Dao-Yi Chow, co-founder of New York-based Public School, which was invited to dress Wisdom Kaye in collaboration with eBay, told BoF ahead of the gala. “It’s a big stage for us to drive home what we represent.”

While the controversies that swirled around the Met Gala didn’t do much to distract on the carpet, the real world found its way in. “Gilded Age” actress Louisa Jacobson wore a Dilara Findikoglu dress modeled after Joan of Arc. The meaning, she said, went deeper than the artistic connection.

“Armour is an intersection of form and fashion, and right now it feels like we all need armour to deflect literal and figurative weapons,” she said.

Paris-based Matieres Fecales was one of the few to address the controversy head-on: Actress Sarah Paulson wore a voluptuous dress from the brand’s latest collection, which critiqued the ultra-wealthy.

With a dollar-bill mask over her eyes, she told reporters the name of her look: “The 1 percent.”