Once again, the first Monday in May is fast approaching, the moment we annually find ourselves beset by the Met Gala.
It’s going to be the gala to end all galas, so expect an endless procession of fashion hot-takes, celebrity spectacle, drunken after-party video leaks and breathless Rihanna anticipation, all wrapped up in a lexicological bow of co-opted slang Black gays stopped using two years ago, HUNTY!
Over the past few days, no fewer than 10 articles fretting about Met Gala co-chair Zendaya’s as-yet unfinished dress have been posted, the most distressed of which notes that “this news has sent ripples through the fashion community, leaving everyone wondering why and how this could happen.”
Even in an era filled with the horrors of late-stage capitalism run amok—bipartisan support for genocide; rolling back of reproductive, civil, and voting rights; a threadbare social safety net; decades of wage stagnation; tax cuts for the the rich; the crushing of unions and labor rights; expansion of the militarized police surveillance state; creeping techno-authoritarianism; untested, unregulated, and unchecked A.I.; entrenched racial inequality and injustice; right-wing and white supremacist extremist violence; and Boeing jet parts falling from the sky like so many dead whistleblowers—that kind of frivolous urgency promises that this year’s event nonetheless will stand out as a vainglorious display of self-congratulatory decadence and tone-deaf extravagance. (Sidenote: the other co-chairs are J. Lo, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth—which, huh?)
But let us get back on topic. The theme of this year’s gala is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” also the name of the exhibition at the Met’s Costume Institute fashion archive, which funds itself each year with proceeds from the gala.
Zendaya during the Met Gala in 2019.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
The titular sleeping beauties, Vogue has noted, are not princesses from “Brothers Grimm or Disney,” but instead some 250 pieces from the museum’s permanent collection that can never be worn again because they are so very old and fragile. (Low-key shout out to President Joe Biden.) Those items will be “displayed via video animation, light projection, AI, CGI, and other forms of sensory stimulation.”
The gala dress code, “The Garden of Time,” is based on J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story. It is a tale of aristocrats, living ensconced in a walled-off estate, who each day must stave off an ever-advancing “immense rabble” of plebes.
Completely unrelated, entry to this year’s (invite-only, as always) gala is $75,000 per ticket—up $25,000 over last year’s price—a cost celebrities needn’t pay themselves because various brands cover it for them. Tables, by the way, start somewhere around $350,000. Anna Wintour hates you.
And of course, it all takes place at the Met Museum of Art, an institution filled with items straight-up boosted or otherwise coercively extracted from countries we condescendingly regard as somehow lesser—while we marvel at their priceless cultural artifacts in Manhattan. But alas, it is too late to change the theme to “Irony.”
“I suppose we should, though only fleetingly, all sit back and take in the Marie Antoinette of it all.”
All this begs so many questions.
Will Kylie Jenner’s big reveal be that she is, indeed, pregnant, not with Timothée Chalamet’s baby—but with a baby that is Timothée Chalamet? (Poor Things realness? Baybée? Am I doing this right?)
Timothée Chalamet attends the Met Gala in 2021.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images
In a space where people can finally get a break from so much incessant chatter over dead children in Gaza, will there be a moment of silence to mourn the campus buildings being so cruelly occupied and vandalized? Will Megyn Kelly, fresh off complaining about the unattractiveness of students protesting genocide, finally be given the masturbation material she so openly craves?
Should we expect New York City Mayor Eric Adams to make a repeat appearance and, if so, will he again be wearing an item bedazzled with some bullshit platitude about gun violence while he floods every cranny of the city with cops playing random shoot ‘em up games? Also, can we get somebody to make sure Olayemi Olurin is always somewhere in his sightline?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Tracey Collins at the Met Gala in 2022.
Chris Polk/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images
Was the cockroach who showed up last year invited back, and will she at least stick to the theme this time? What time can we expect the countdown for the annual Derulo Fall to begin? And is it true, as Page Six reports, that Queen Wintour will use the Gala to coronate as “America’s New Royalty” Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchezzzzzzzzzzzz…
Oh, sorry. Not sure how long I fogged out there.
Now, as much as this might seem like one long grouse-fest, even I think the Met Gala offers some moments for fun to interrupt the endless doom-scroll that is our times. I hope Ayo Edibiri turns up, in all the ways that term applies. Rooting for everybody Black. Hope Pedro Pascal, Lil Nas X, and Taika Waititi—as individual people, I mean—get as weird as they wanna be.
The headlines, for the night, will crowd out the somber images for just a few hours—offering instead thoughts on who ate and left no crumbs and who is just… crummy. I suppose we should, though only fleetingly, all sit back and take in the Marie Antoinette of it all.
All tea, no shade.
