Wake Up Babe: The 2024 Met Gala Theme Just Dropped
Zendaya & Law Roach at the 2019 Met Gala. Dimitrios Kambouris. Getty Images.
The 2024 Met Gala theme has been announced and has left many scratching their heads in confusion. The theme, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” may bring to mind ruffled dresses and Disney princesses, but the reality is a bit more abstract. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s eagerly anticipated fundraising gala for its Costume Institute is held each year on the first Monday in May. Its attendees include the who’s who of the fashion world, as well as the biggest names in entertainment.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images.
The “sleeping beauties” referenced in the Met Gala theme aren’t cursed princesses, but rather historically significant clothing that can never be worn again, due to the gradual decay of its component materials. Visitors will enjoy rare close-up views of these pieces in special glass casings, as many items are too fragile to even be displayed on mannequins. The exhibit aims to “reawaken” these garments through the use of innovative display technologies such as AI, video animation, light projection, and CGI.
A$AP Rocky & Rihanna at the 2023 Met Gala. Getty Images.
Renowned photographer and founder of SHOWstudio, Nick Knight will collaborate with The Met on the visuals of the exhibit. Additionally, it will truly be a scent-sational affair, with the likes of Sissel Tolaas, who has worked with Balenciaga, creating scents for the installations.
Iman at the 2021 Met Gala. John Shearer. Wireimage.
Such a unique approach “will push the boundaries of imagination and invite us to experience the multisensory facets of … garment{s], many of which get lost when entering a museum collection as an object,” claims the director and CEO of The Met, Max Hollein. He also notes that the exhibit “will heighten our engagement with these masterpieces of fashion by evoking how they feel, move, sound, smell, and interact when being worn, ultimately offering a deeper appreciation of the integrity, beauty, and artistic brilliance of the works on display.”
Spanning over 400 years of history, the exhibit will feature approximately 250 pieces from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection, many of which have rarely been seen by the public. Among these is an 1877 silk satin ball gown by Charles Frederick Worth, who is considered the father of haute couture. Visitors can expect to feast their senses on the work of other historical fashion icons such as Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli, as well as contemporary trailblazers like Phillip Lim, Stella McCartney, and Conner Ives.
Janelle Monae at the 2019 Met Gala. Getty Images.
According to Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the Costume Institute, “Sleeping Beauties” centers on “nature as a metaphor for fashion and for its fragility and its ephemerality.” As such, in addition to the core exhibit, there will be three additional zones, Land, Sea, and Sky, which Bolton states, “is very much an ode to nature and the emotional poetics of fashion.”
Lil Nas X at the 2021 Met Gala. Getty Images.
The Met Gala, more formally known as the Costume Institute Gala, serves as the opening ceremony for the Institute’s annual fashion exhibition. It was founded by publicist Eleanor Lambert in 1948 as a way of encouraging donations to the Institute from New York City’s elite. However, the gala as we know it today was the brainchild of former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland, who established the idea of themes for each gala.
Jared Leto at the 2023 Met Gala. Mike Coppola. Getty Images.
Next year’s “Sleeping Beauties” theme, for all its creativity and high-tech bells and whistles, is not without controversy. The exhibit will highlight historical garments too fragile to be worn again, which feels like a bit of a rebuke (or an endorsement) of Kim Kardashian’s controversial choice to wear (and allegedly damage, as some debunked reports claim) Marilyn Monroe’s infamous ‘Happy Birthday Mr. President’ dress at the 2022 Met Gala.
Kim Kardashian at the 2022 Met Gala. Photo by Taylor Hill. Getty Images.
The Met’s use of technology to bring its “sleeping beauties” to life seems to be an encouragement for attendees to sport replicas rather than priceless historical artifacts, but it isn’t uncommon for guests to pull garments from the Institute’s archives, so the messaging seems a bit mixed. In any case, we will be setting our alarms so that come May 6th, we won’t miss a minute of “Sleeping Beauties.”
Article by Ren Wilson, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Designer, PhotoBook Magazine
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