Stars gather in New York for Met Gala tribute to Karl Lagerfeld

There’s the Oscars in Los Angeles and the Met Gala in New York: Global fashion and showbiz stars will flock to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s red carpet on Monday night to pay tribute this year in luxury and style. extravagance to “Kaiser” Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019.

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In the pure American philanthropic tradition to raise millions of dollars, the Met Gala, which takes place on the first Monday in May, is intended to finance the museum’s fashion department, The Costume Institute, whose annual exhibition, from 5 May, pays tribute to the couturier with the ponytail and dark glasses, inseparable from the house of Chanel.

Created in 1948, the “Met Gala” was for a long time reserved for the very high society of New York, but the editor-in-chief of Vogue Anna Wintour took it over in 1995 to transform it into a planetary “people” event adapted to the era of social networks.

The list of hundreds of stars of fashion, music, cinema, politics or the business world – mainly American – is kept secret until the last moment.

$50,000 instead

Even invited, the ticket is very expensive: 50,000 dollars for a place at dinner (compared to 35,000 dollars in 2022), from 300,000 dollars the table paid by a patron.

From Monday morning, under a cloudless blue sky after a weekend of wind and rain, admirers crowded in front of the Met, a huge neo-classical building on the mythical 5th Avenue, on the edge of Central Park.

“We got here around 8 or 9 a.m. It’s great to see celebrities that we like to watch in shows or movies on TV or whose music we listen to, “rejoiced with AFP Joseph Pogoda, an 18-year-old student from Virginia. (East).

Equipped with his cameras, he hopes to see Austin Butler, the star of the biopic on Elvis Presley, or the business and media woman Kris Jenner, the mother of Kim Kardashian.

Inside, the former model and former First Lady of France Carla Bruni has already paid tribute to “Karl”, during the presentation to the press of the exhibition event on the couturier, “Line of Beauty”.

In the pompous setting of one of the greatest museums in the world, under a huge glass roof and in the midst of statues, she said she was “honored to be here today to celebrate the extraordinary career of (her) dear friend “.

«Immense talent» the «Karl»

“Everything interested him, except mediocrity”, estimated Carla Bruni, praising his “tremendous talent”, in front of Anna Wintour – longtime friend of Lagerfeld and who will certainly be dressed in Chanel – and under the eyes of the legend of tennis Roger Federer, one of the co-presidents of the gala this year with singer Dua Lipa and actresses Michaela Coel and Penélope Cruz.

As a tribute to the fashion legend, who passed away in February 2019, the stars of the gala will be expected to be dressed in outfits honoring him.

However, voices were raised to deplore that such a great tribute was paid to the “Kaiser”, who had criticized the #metoo movement and made comments deemed hurtful for round-sized models.

“The show is really centered on Karl the designer, on his works rather than his words,” defended the curator of the exhibition and chief curator of the Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton.

Lagerfeld’s personality is mentioned at the end of the exhibition “but we have not added his most controversial and insulting comments”, assured Mr. Bolton.