It was just over a year ago that time was called on the 2020 edition of the Met Gala, the pinnacle of the fashion world’s event calendar. Today, however, with horizons looking notably brighter than they did back then, the powers that be at New York’s Metropolitan Museum have proven that being bitten once needn’t make you twice shy, announcing not one, but TWO Met Galas to coincide with The Costume Institute’s two-part exhibition focussing on American fashion.
Opening on 18 September 2021, and closing on 5 September 2022, the blockbuster show “will consider how fashion reflects evolving notions of identity in America and will explore a multitude of perspectives through presentations that speak to some of the complexities of history with powerful immediacy,” says Max Hollein, the Marina Kellen French Director of The Met.
The first chapter, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, “will establish a modern vocabulary of American fashion”, writes Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, “based on the expressive qualities of clothing as well as deeper associations with issues of equity, diversity and inclusion.” Five days prior, on 13 September 2021, the first of the two balls will be taking place — albeit on “a more intimate” scale than in previous years — hosted by Billie Eilish, Timothée Chalamet, Naomi Osaka and Amanda Gorman.
All going according to plan, though, the Met Gala will make its all-bells-and-whistles return on the first Monday of May 2022, for the opening of the second chapter of the year-long show. A collaboration between the Costume Institute and The Met’s American Wing, In America: An Anthology of Fashion “will further investigate the evolving language of American fashion,” writes Andrew, featuring “a series of collaborations with American film directors who will visualise the unfinished stories inherent in The Met’s period rooms.”
So there you have it — a surefire reason to slip out of our comfy quarantine looks and into the svelte, sinuous looks that the AW21 shows brimmed over with. At last, fashion will have its big night out again!