Wake up! The theme for next year’s Met Gala, one of the biggest nights in fashion, has been announced: “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art shared the nature-focused theme Wednesday morning at a news conference with Anna Wintour, Condé Nast chief content officer and Vogue global editorial director; Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Met’s Anna Wintour Costume Center; and Max Hollein, CEO and director of the Met.
“We have exhibitions where we try to reawaken costumes in our collection, usually conceptually by interpretation, and by juxtaposing historical and contemporary side by side to sort of mutually inform and enliven each other,” Bolton said. “But for this one, we wanted to literally reawaken the costumes.”
What will that mean for red carpet looks? Is this a pajama party? (No.) Here’s what we know.
What does the 2024 Met Gala theme mean?
“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion will explore notions of rebirth and renewal, using nature as a metaphor for the impermanence of fashion,” the Met said in a news release.
The theme is meant to challenge the typically lifeless presentation of costumes in museums with technology that stimulates the senses, Bolton said at the Met Gala news conference.
“When a costume comes into the Met’s collection, you know, its status is changed irreversibly. It can’t be worn, obviously. So you don’t see the movement, you can’t smell it, so you can’t hear it, you can’t touch it,” he said. “And, in a sense, we’re left with really a sight.”
The costumes in the exhibition will come alive with the use of artificial intelligence, animation, projections and soundscapes at the Met’s showcase of about 250 costumes, according to the news release.
“Nature is such a throughline in our collection,” Bolton said. “But also nature, I think, is a broader metaphor for fashion to serve out the fragility and the ephemerality of fashion, but also society, the secular nature of fashion and ideas of renewal and rebirth and regeneration.”
Hollein said in a statement that “Sleeping Beauties will heighten our engagement with these masterpieces of fashion by evoking how they feel, move, sound, smell and interact when being worn, ultimately offering a deeper appreciation of the integrity, beauty and artistic brilliance of the works on display.”
What themes has the Met Gala had in the past?
The theme for this year’s Met Gala honored the late Karl Lagerfeld, a fashion designer known for his creative direction at Chanel, Fendi and his own name brand, as well as his complicated legacy.
It wasn’t the first time the theme surrounded a particular person. In 2017, Rei Kawakubo and her work as founder of Comme des Garçons were the Met Gala’s focus, and Alexander McQueen was the headline name in 2011.
Other themes have included dressing up as “American Independence,” in 2021; “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” in 2018, in which Zendaya donned a Joan of Arc costume; and “China: Through the Looking Glass,” in 2015, where Rihanna debuted her iconic lush yellow cape.
How have celebrities interpreted previous themes?
Many of this year’s Met Gala attendees, including Dua Lipa and Margot Robbie, wore Chanel pieces Lagerfeld designed, while others embraced the theme more literally: Lily Collins’s gown had “KARL” bejeweled onto it, and Jeremy Pope had Lagerfeld’s face on his cape.
Last year, Blake Lively wowed for the Met Gala’s “Gilded Glamour” theme with a transforming green and copper dress inspired by the Statue of Liberty’s oxidation.
Many celebrities dipped into the abstract with the 2019 theme, “Camp,” with Harry Styles, Lady Gaga and Serena Williams as celebrity hosts. That year, Katy Perry showed up as a chandelier and transformed into a Celine Dion-approved glitzy cheeseburger for an after-party. Although, as is the case with many Met Galas, others fell flat in their commitment to the theme. (Looking at you, Karlie Kloss.)
What is the Met Gala, and can you go?
The Met Gala, more formally known as the Costume Institute Benefit, is an annual fashion event held on the first Monday in May. (That’s May 6 for next year.) It’s a fundraiser for the museum’s Anna Wintour Costume Center, and it also marks the opening of the year’s coinciding costume exhibition.
The gala is invitation-only — sorry! — and tickets this year cost $50,000 a person or at least $300,000 a table, according to the Associated Press.
A previous version of this article incorrectly said when Rei Kawakubo was the focus of the Met Gala. It was 2017, not 2015. The article has been corrected.