![]() For some, it will always be shamelessly extravagant, for others, this is where its brilliance lies. It is a barometer for our times, albeit a richly gilded one, and a chance to see what a lot of cash, creativity and confidence can do. Wintour's Met Gala is an all-couture-blazing sartorial spectacle. ![]() "What separates those who get invited from everyone else? What really happens inside the party? These questions keep the public interested in the event, thus any scrap of information we get about it becomes a news item, fuelling further intrigue." "Part of the elitism of the event is its mystique," says Odell. The night is as much about what is seen as what isn't, because while the front steps are home to a galaxy's worth of flashing cameras, the festivities inside are shrouded in secrecy. "It has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the Costume Institute at the museum, owing to Anna succeeding in raising the ticket price from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars since she started planning it." This year's tickets are reported to be selling for an eye-watering $50,000. "The Met Gala is likely to be Anna Wintour's biggest career achievement," Amy Odell, fashion journalist and best-selling author of Anna: The Biography, tells BBC Culture. While many things about the Met Gala today have been seriously ratcheted up, then as now it is about raising money. But it was in 1995 that the single biggest shift in its history arrived in the shape of a bob: this was the year that Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour took over. It was under the tenure of US fashion editor Diana Vreeland in the 1970s that the event became more elaborate, with the introduction of themes spicing things up and the guestlist extending to cultural types such as Andy Warhol, as well as society figures like Jackie Kennedy. "From 1948 until the 1970s, the goal was to look impeccable, embracing one's own style while celebrating American fashion on the storied steps of the Met," says Tiffany. ![]() It has been through many twists and turns since. "During the war, New Yorkers had to black out their windows and keep the lights off, so for the original Met Gala in 1948, Lambert created a 'Midnight Dinner' to let loose." Why the super-rich love understated dressingĮven then, though, it was a chance to have some fun. The $50 tickets were sold to members of New York high society. More broadly, he adds, it was a way to "raise the visibility of American fashion". Eleanor Lambert, the publicist and "godmother of fashion", launched the Met Gala 75 years ago in 1948 as a fundraiser for the new Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, John Tiffany, her former mentee and biographer, tells BBC Culture. There are stunts, frocks the size of caravans and selfies that go on to be seen by millions of people all over the planet.īut it started more humbly. "The first Monday in May" has come to be known as the night the fashion industry lets its hair well and truly down.
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