From the moment the Met Gala carpet commenced, outsiders were confused about just what the theme meant and how celebrities were interpreting things. The Costume Institute’s exhibition this year is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” and Wintour was very specific about the theme being “The Garden of Time,” based on the JG Ballard story. Personally, I was not confused about the theme because I remembered this cute Vogue video from a couple of months ago:
Just in: This year, #BadBunny, @ChrisHemsworth, @jlo, @Zendaya, and Anna Wintour will serve as this year’s official #MetGala co-chairs! Tied to the aforementioned exhibition, the dress code is “The Garden of Time.” https://t.co/69FO7LdvIV pic.twitter.com/fjCSQVpID8
— Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) February 15, 2024
It felt like Wintour was making an edict: florals, dress up like actual flowers, the operative word is GARDEN. So it was really weird to see so many women march straight towards all of those metallics and beige/sand dresses. There was actually a severe lack of florals overall. Just ahead of the gala, Anna Wintour admitted that the theme had already gotten away from her:
Anna Wintour has one regret ahead of tonight’s 2024 Met Gala. The Vogue magazine chief, who has presided over the star-studded fashion fete since 1995, apologized for any “confusion” over the theme of this year’s event.
The exhibit’s theme is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” while the dress code is “The Garden of Time” — and Wintour admits that may have unintentionally opened the door for any and every kind of interpretation.
“This exhibition broke my cardinal rule,” Wintour told the “Today” show on Monday. “When we came up with the title ‘Sleeping Beauties,’ it’s wonderful and poetic and romantic, but actually, it could be many, many things.”
She sought advisement from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute curator, Andrew Bolton, about the dress code.
“I said, ‘What are we gonna say to people to wear to this night?’ And he said, ‘Well, what about ‘Garden of Time?’” Wintour shared. “So, I fear that we’ve unleashed a lot of confusion out there, and for which I deeply apologize.”
The 74-year-old fashion doyenne added: “I imagine we’ll see a lot of flowers,” teasing she could “possibly” be seen wearing some.
She was really hoping to see a lot of flowers! It’s downright fascinating to see how few people went for anything garden-themed or floral or anything like that. Now, that being said, I think a lot of women leaned into what the exhibition was about – “Sleeping Beauties,” and the idea of using vintage or archive pieces as inspiration for modern fashion. Many women wore gowns directly inspired by archive pieces and they were doing some really fascinating callbacks for many different designers. That was cool. I’m begging Wintour to actually make a stricter theme for next year’s gala. I still remember the concerns about 2015’s gala, “China: Through the Looking Glass,” and the legitimate fears that celebrities would go to offensive places with how they interpreted the theme. But that ended up being one of the best galas and best themes, with celebrities really doing deep dives on Chinese history, fabrics, design, jewelry, etc.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Anna Wintour Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Anna Wintour Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Elle Fanning Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Mindy Kaling Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Tyla Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Sarah Jessica Parker Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Gigi Hadid Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities attend the 2024 Met Gala Celebrating ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Featuring: Kim Kardashian Where: New York, United States When: 06 May 2024 Credit: Michael Stewart/INSTARimages.com
China Through looking Glasss had beautiful pieces, but they were not super well researched on Chinese history and aesthetics imho. There were so many poppys during that gala, it was almost offensive lol. I still have to tell people that the Opium war was something the Brits did to China and not the other way around….
Maybe Anna didn’t actually read the story? It’s about wealthy, isolated nobility ensconced in their villa, and their futile efforts to stave off an ever advancing horde of peasants by plucking one magical glass flower from their garden at a time. It’s fascinating to me that they chose that theme and I wondered it hinted at some deeply buried anxiety about the privileged few who can afford to attend the gala and how precarious their power and wealth may be while the rest of the world burns, literally and figuratively.
Wow, you should be writer. I mean it.
💯 agree. What a fabulous analysis, Nic.
Maybe someone suggested it to AW and she didn’t actually read it. Oh, the irony
Increasingly, that’s how the Met Gala is coming off every year. It’s become so Decadence on Display that it would be a service to humanity to scale it back or cancel it entirely. Sorry, not sorry! Isn’t there a more socially responsible way for the Met to raise funds?
Where’s the harm? They pay to participate, it’s fun to watch, and this year it raised $26 million for the museum.
It might be mildly amusing if next year everyone wore torn jeans and ratty tshirts. And if the men started “naked dressing” too. As it is, it’s just boring and elitist.
The Gala is just for the Costume Institute, which is (I believe) the only department/collection that more or less has to self-fund. Preserving all those textiles does not come cheap, so I’ll give Anna credit for her making it a big event, but this year was definitely not their best.
I don’t think they care seeing as they’ll take massive amounts of money from the least scrupulous billionaires.
I’m sorry, are we supposed to feel bad about TAKING money from billionaires now? If they aren’t good for philanthropy, what the hell are they good for?
Yeah, I read the piece, it didn’t have any actual flowers in it. Lots of imagery of crystals, a barran plain, few colors mentioned. Did Anna even read it?
Yeah… I doubt most of these people read.
I liked that in the final description, the count and countess were statues. It made me think that, without realizing it, they had become outdated relics of the past – just like the modern royal family. They were so busy trying to hold on to what they had that they didn’t notice they were no longer real or relevant.
I was really hoping to see someone wearing something that referenced historical revolutions, royals losing their heads, a red ribbon tied around a neck, something.
That’s it exactly. Hello, Anna? And here I thought she was making a statement about aristocracies dying and late stage capitalism and how unsustainable hoarding wealth is. Nope. Only flowers please.
I, as well, thought…interesting theme…what statement will be made given today’s geopolitical context?….None…Anna just wanted to see pretty flowers while the story referenced crystal flowers and statues…😭 If not even Anna can read and comprehend a short story she uses as the inspiration of her party, we are doomed.
I also think that there are multiple things in a garden that aren’t flowers and I appreciated people who stretched, like J.Lo’s dress reminded me of a spider web covered in dew.
The girl with the sand dress seemed to get it. She was the sands of time and the hourglass represented time running out.
Tick tick tick. Agreed.
It would be fun if someday a lot of attendees went full on anarchist-punk-eat the rich- first one up against the wall messaging… but at $75K per ticket, probably will never happen.
What a gem of writing! It’s writings like yours that keeps bringing me back to this website (and gossip too, keke). Thank you for the burst of dopamine — you should absolutely be a writer, if you are not one already!
Florals in spring, Anna, groundbreaking. Lol
I see what you did there, lol
Perfect
Nice. And, one of the favorite movies for the crew in my house (a crew with a lot of different ages, genders, and movie genre preferences).
I feel like there are people who are not on theme every year though?
Telling designers to work with a theme seems to be like herding cats. So many of them reply with “You’re not the boss of me!” outfits.
Everybody wants to be the one who will stand out among the people dressing to the theme, so everybody pushes it a little bit and then nobody does the theme. I think that’s half the fun though!
I thought I read a lot of the beige pieces being the sands of time? Where did the sands of time concept come from? I suppose you could interpret that from Japanese rock garden.
If you read the shorty story upon which the theme this year is based, the sand dress is totally on point.
Thank you. I haven’t read it but now I am going to look it up.
Tyla was one of the best in my opinion and so creative. They even cut her sand dress inside. I also loved Gigi Hadid’s dress, of course Zendaya and Demi Moore and Sarah Jessica parker
Maybe Anna Wintour should explicitly state that all event goers should adhere to the year’s theme. If you’re going to throw a 1980’s theme party, then all guests should stick to it. They all paid $50K to attend so maybe they feel like they don’t have to listen to her.
I always wondered why Gwyneth bothered attending,its like she went out of her way to not wear anything remotely close to the Galas themes.
Tickets are $75,000 now. When you’re getting that much per person, I don’t think you can afford to turn guests away at the door because they’re not on theme. Best to let the press and social media judge them, which is what happens anyway. You still have the $75,000 and you don’t have to invite them the next year.
I read elsewhere that apparently Anna approves the majority of the outfits before the Gala happens.
I hope this woman leaves American Vogue soon. How can it be that a Brit is responsible for the US Vogue? She spreads British (and British monarchy) propaganda all the time. And I say that as a European woman. I find this woman’s personality just awful. Only miserable people try to make other people’s lives miserable.
And I think that with her awful Met Gala outfit she wants to cosplay Kate in her coronation outfit. horrible. That underdress…
She doesn’t even dress particularly well. I could look at Carine Roitfeld (sp?) and I wish I could pull off that eyeliner or leather pants. Anna has a bob, big glasses and very generic meh clothes.
Her coat’s pattern is inspired by one of the pieces in the exhibition, a coat from 1889 by Charles Worth’s with his famous “Tulipes Hollandaises” fabric design. It hasn’t got anything to do with Kate.
She may have wanted florals but I found the interpretations of time very interesting. The exhibition is featuring works that are too fragile to be worn again which combined with the poem I felt suggests a wonderful idea of the ephemeral nature of life. The moments we can find joy in only for them to be followed by sorrow, slipping past us in equal measure to only be recalled in a hazy afterglow.
Well Said!! Bravo!
I don’t get the Met. It always seems a bit trashy though I don’t look at a lot of pics. I think I see them regardless. I guess they enter consciousness
I think trashy is the point. It involves a lot of trashy people anyway.
I think the confusion is correct me if I am wrong,but there is a Theme and then there is a Dress code. It’s like saying you are having a Greese themed party but everyone must come dressed in 90s fashion.
I was wondering the same. Why is she surprised by the confusion?
I think if they had just kept the theme – Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion – without using the Garden of Time – it might have been easier to track the theme on the attendees. The issue with the Garden of Time was that some attendees just took that theme literally and dressed in….well, florals….and some attendees (or their assistants/stylists/whoever) read the short story so their designs went more with the short story itself. I wonder if Anna had even read the story?
So you ended up having everything from recreated vintage pieces that for the most part were gorgeous (like Nicole Kidman’s) to people who were just wearing flowers to people who wore sand and crystals and none of those were necessarily off theme.
And then you had the people who just didn’t follow the theme at all but I feel that’s always going to happen.
I can see why many celebs opted to lean into Sleeping Beauty – the Garden of Time theme could be interpreted as mocking the poor. And not blaming celebs since they trust their stylists. But if some of them had actually read the story. A few of them may have chosen to not parade around in glass flowers as much.
I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s theme is “A Modest Proposal” inspired by Jonathan Swift
😂 🎯 Spuds!!
Rihanna would show up as a sour-cream-and-chives-flavored potato chip.
https://twitter.com/rachelmetz/status/1787725139465183587?s=61&t=9TaAsfwrl1H_hiFD2SEi3A
After all this fundraising, does the Met still not have enough money to buy and restore Marylin Monroe’s iconic dress(es)?
Somebody has to want to sell them.
Pretty sure that everything has its price. Now that Kim Kardashian has damaged the dress(es), Ripley’s, et al., might be even more motivated to sell.
Gotta say she was the most inspired dresser. For someone who’s job is fashion she is dressed so boring.
Sorry meant to say uninspired.
So, Anna is apologizing…but it sounded like she kind of blamed it on Andrew? As in he was the one who added Garden of Time.
1. Florals, and 2. Vintage are two great themes… for two DIFFERENT years. Hopefully they revisit both themes again in the near future.
I wish they would do gardens in famous paintings. Although someone would probably come as The Garden of Earthly Delights.😱
I thought it was the greatest self troll in recent memory. lol. Ballard generally, and that story specifically. When it was announced, I thought, how many will actually read the story? Answer: very very few. Here’s to the self annihilating death urge, but make it fashion!