The Met 2020 charity gala, one of the most eagerly awaited fashion events of the year, has been postponed. It was scheduled to be held on 4 May to officially open on 7 May (three days later) the Costume Institute‘s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) spring exhibition in New York, but this year, gala and exhibition, always hand in hand, will be held later without an assigned date. In the following lines we analyse the role of Anna Wintour at the Met Gala, the great fashion event that in 2020 is also part of the special celebration of 150 years of the museum’s history.
Anna Wintour: responsible for the success of the Met Gala
72 years of history precede the Met Gala, but at what point did it become the pop icon it is today and, above all, thanks to whom? One name stands out among the rest in answering these questions: Anna Wintour.
The editor of Vogue USA since 1988 began chairing the gala in 1995. Since then, more than 125 million dollars have been raised for the museum. However, money is not the only thing the fashion industry has gained from the success of the gala. Before the director of Vogue took over the responsibility of directing the event, it was confined to the basement of the museum: a further sign that fashion was not considered an artistic expression and was subject to the prejudices of those who underestimate its cultural value.
Committed to both elevating fashion to the category of art and bringing it closer to the general public in equal parts, Wintour’s role in fashion over the last three decades is indisputable. Great ideologist of the democratisation of fashion, the first cover of Vogue under her management featured a model wearing a couture top by Christian Lacroix combined with jeans. The fashion bible was opening up to the general public, to street style.
Anna Wintour and the Met: story of a winning union
The story of how Anna Wintour became the organiser of the Met Gala begins with a call from Oscar de la Renta. The designer’s wife was heavily involved with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and they both wanted to know if Vogue would like to be part of the Costume Institute Gala.
Anna Wintour was not the first at Vogue to take over. Previously, it had fallen to Diana Vreeland, one of the great editors in the history of Vogue. She turned the gala into a meeting point for the industry for several years, although after her departure, the event declined and, with it, the museum’s funds.
That’s where Oscar de la Renta’s call and Anna Wintour’s role make sense. Anna Wintour took on the role of Diana Vreeland and began working with the Met. Integrating the institution’s traditionalism with her open-minded and controversial vision of the industry was no easy task, nor did her work pay off immediately. The situation really began to change with Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, the 2011 exhibition, which suddenly became one of the Met’s five most visited exhibitions in its history. Tradition and spectacle now converge naturally.
The keys to the success of Anna Wintour’s Met Gala
There are two keys to the success of Anna Wintour’s Met Gala: the originality of its themes and the guest list. Wintour is personally in charge of the latter, faithful to her vision of integrating fashion and celebrities in the same imaginary.
Only the celebrities of the moment and the big names in fashion have a place at the event. The designers work for months to dress the celebrities according to the dress code. A great test for their creativity, especially knowing that every year they have to adapt to the most varied and particular themes.
Exclusive guests and original themes
In 2019, for example, the gala (and the exhibition) was inspired by Camp, a concept from a 1964 essay by Susan Sontag. In 2018, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic was based on the Catholic imaginary, becoming the Costume Institute’s most visited exhibition to date and one of the three most visited in the museum’s history.
Ideas, concepts… that have served as inspiration on several occasions, as have some of the great designers of history such as Alexander McQueen (2011), Charles James (2014) or Rei Kawakubo (2017). In fact, in 2022 the show will feature Karl Lagerfeld.
The exclusivity, the openness to the general public, the spectacle, the celebrities, the spectacular themes, the dress code… have turned the Met Gala into a phenomenon comparable to the Oscars Gala. Aspects in which Anna Wintour seems to be largely to blame.
