Met Gala 2022 – NBC New York (47)

Calling all fashionistas!

It’s the first Monday in May. Do you already know what this means?

The biggest fashion night of the year, the Met Gala returns to its usual place on the social calendar this year after the pandemic turmoil.

It’s been just under eight months since the last gala, an annual fundraiser that raises eight-figure sums for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. Before the pandemic, some 600 prominent people from fashion, sports, music, film, television, technology and more were invited. This year and last, the numbers were closer to 400. The 2020 gala was cancelled.

Last year more than $16.4 million were raised. The star event is the main budget feeder of the institute.

This year’s gala coincides with the opening of the second part of a two-part exhibition at the Costume Institute focused on American fashion and style. The dress code for the evening is gold glam and white tie, in the style of the Gilded Age, that tumultuous period between the Civil War and the early 20th century known for its robber barons, drama and grandeur.

This year’s walk up the Grand Staircase at the Met returns the gala to its legendary venue on the first Monday in May, with the official live stream appearing on fashion magazine Vogue’s website.

Vogue’s Anna Wintour has run the gala since 1995. She continues as one of the night’s honorary co-chairs, along with designer Tom Ford and Instagram’s Adam Mosseri. The official co-chairs for 2022 are Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The cost of a seat at last year’s Met Gala started at $35,000, though some attend for free. Celebrities are sometimes accompanied (and pay their bills) by the designers who dress them or other companies that invite them. A focus on inclusivity in fashion this year may celebrate and include more unsung hero designers than usual.

The event is the brainchild of the late Eleanor Lambert, a fashion publicist as powerful as Wintour was in her day. In 1948, she needed to devise a way to pay for the newly formed Institute of Costume, the only department at the Met that must raise its own funds.

While many on Wintour’s carefully curated guest list follow the dress code, others go their own way. Interpretation is everything. Think of Rihanna in her papal miter, Billy Porter as a sun god carried on a litter by shirtless men, and Lady Gaga shedding layers upon layers as the fashion world stops to watch.

The gala also serves as a twisted time capsule of love gone wrong for celebrity couples. Kim Kardashian and Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, first attended in 2013. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes attended in 2008. Jennifer Lopez attended with Marc Anthony in 2011, then Alex Rodriguez in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Ben Affleck joined joined her indoors last year after she walked alone.

Charlize Theron and Sean Penn were among the “it” couples invited in 2014. Selena Gomez and The Weeknd appeared together in 2017.

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