So What is The Met Gala?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit, The Met Ball, or Met Gala is anything but your average black-tie red carpet event. Typically held the first Monday of May, with 2021 being the exception due to Covid-19, the event unofficially titled “the Oscars of the East Coast” marks the start of the Costume Institute’s annual blockbuster fashion exhibit. Once a year designers, models, and Hollywood stars all gather at The Metropolitan Museum and dress in elaborate articles of clothing, representative of the year’s theme. Initially a fundraising event for the museum, the Met Gala has turned into a spectacle of wealth, limiting its participants and designers, hence the need for this archive.