Met Gala Date: Everything You Need to Know About the Costume Institute Ball

Soon, on the night of May 1-2, Moscow time, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will host perhaps the main fashion event of the year, the Met Gala Costume Institute ball. Our editorial team is already preparing to post (follow on the website and social networks) and talk the most beautiful images of the red carpet. In the meantime, we’ve gathered for you everything you need to know about the ball.

First balls and Eleanor Lambert

Today, the Met Gala is associated with Anna Wintour, and everyone has forgotten that we actually owe the creation of the Costume Institute ball to an entirely different woman. Eleanor Lambert ran an advertising agency, was head of public relations for the Whitney Museum of American Art, and helped launch MOMA. He started New York Fashion Week in 1948, held the first Met Gala that same year, and founded the CFDA American Council of Designers in 1962 she.

Then the ball looked completely different. It was more of a gala dinner that took place at the Waldorf Astoria or Rainbow Room restaurant in early December. Admission was only $50 and even included a costume rental from the Institute archives. At dinner, guests were entertained with jokes, drawings and lotteries, and the dress code of the dinner had nothing to do with the theme of the exhibition.

The 70s and Diana Vreeland

Diana Vreeland, who had just been fired from her post as editor-in-chief of American Vogue in 1972, joined the Costume Institute team as a consultant. And, of course, with his arrival, the prom became a mundane event, and the format of the event gradually changed from a boring dinner to a noisy and large-scale event.

True, opening tickets for the first Balenciaga exhibition were not easy to get. Vreeland had taken dinner off the schedule, and now an evening without flavors, sparkles, and entertainment seemed pointless to her former guests.

And then even Jackie Kennedy came to the event.

In 1974, the ball was first associated with the theme of the exhibition dedicated to the golden age of Hollywood – “The romantic and bright fashion of Hollywood.”

The Beginning of the Anna Wintour Era

In 1995, Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour became the hostess of the prom, and she still holds this position.

Under Wintour, Hollywood stars were guests at the prom, and with them appeared on the red carpet and a solid guest list, which Anna personally approved.

Meanwhile, it was under Wintour that the world’s best brands began to contribute to the fair and the prom. Not surprisingly, the cost of the entrance ticket rose to 30 thousand dollars.

Ticket price for the Met Gala

Unless you’re a friend of Anna Wintour and you’re not a Hollywood star, you have only one chance to go to the prom – to buy a ticket. And it costs like a good car – 30 thousand dollars, and this is just for entry. If you want to sit at the table, you have to pay another 275 thousand dollars.

Anna Wintour shared these figures with The New York Times last year. The money from the sales goes to the development of the Costume Institute.