In Size M.
Better Than ‘Heavenly Bodies’: 2024’s Met Gala Theme Is The Best Of All Time
The Met Gala: The annual fundraiser for The Costume Institute which tries its best to host a theme.
Hard-fought is the title of “Fashion’s Biggest Night,” which sells tickets to designers at more than $300,000 per table. The last time the Met Gala was truly celebrated was in 2018, with the success of the theme, “Heavenly Bodies.”
But Anna Wintour and her team deserve their flowers, because it’s not their fault that in years since, celebrity guests received their invites only to think, “Hmm, what should I wear to this, nylon or polyester Gore-Tex?”
Remembering “Heavenly Bodies”
Flashback to 2018, where the inspiration Michelangelo used for the Sistine Chapel could be found walking amongst mere mortals, and Rihanna came dressed as the pope.
“Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination” was a cultural reset that gave designers and celebrities the chance to play with the past, untethered to their own interpretations of what they consider ‘now.’
Even when looking back, the imagination takes flight:
Would Joan of Arc still have won the Battle of Orléans if she had chosen a Schiaparelli breastplate over Versace?
Would the Virgin Mary have draped herself in all of the bejeweled trappings of Oscar De La Renta?
Or would she have preferred the raw edges of Elena Velez’s apocalypse-core?
2020: A Forgotten Gala
2020’s theme was supposed to be “About Time: Fashion & Duration,” though the only thing the Met endured that year was being the most forgotten gala in history (unrelated to pandemic-induced brain rot or burn out).
As of late, the link between history and fashion has been made easily consumable again by Hollywood’s contemporary stars, and with Margot Robbie closing out her Barbie press tour in pink archival Chanel suits…maybe there were some things they got right in the past.
As a boon, of-the-moment star Zendaya will co-host the Met Gala after wearing 1995 Mugler for Dune: Part II’s press tour, and a marathon of vintage Vivienne Westwood for Challengers, celebrating an encore of collaborations with stylist and slow fashion enthusiast Law Roach.
Enter 2024’s theme: “The Garden of Time.”
Reading “GARDEN” on the invite just to see JLo show up in her leaf dress? Groundbreaking…but perhaps this year is also the one to bet on seeing a reawakening of classics, such as Alexander McQueen’s rendition of Macbeth, which, not unlike the 2024 Met Gala, marked the designer’s return to theatricality after a short period of conservatism.
With a more subdued realistic depiction of wildlife, wearing McQueen’s Fall/Winter 2006 antler-clad “Widow’s Weeds” dress would be a nod to the early aughts, and to the late artist’s modus operandi: There is no designer greater than nature.
“The Garden of Time” transcends a period of instant gratification and custom everything. A night dedicated to celebrating fashion’s greatest moments is a deserved win for the Met Gala, if only to share the stories hand-woven into the very fabric of their existence, waiting to be collected from the dust bags of yesteryear.
