Met Gala set to be held in September
A date has been set for the 2021 edition of the Met Gala.
Early last year, regular co-chair and U.S. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour announced that the 2020 Costume Institute Gala, due to be held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, had been postponed indefinitely as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But on Monday, executives at The Costume Institute confirmed plans for their next major exhibition - a two-part show that will be on view from 18 September 2021 through 5 September 2022 - and revealed that they plan to hold the next Met Gala on 13 September 2021. The Met Gala for Part Two will be held on 2 May 2022.
Part one, titled In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, will celebrate The Costume Institute's 75th anniversary and explore a "modern vocabulary" of U.S. fashion, with the exhibit to feature designs by pioneers of American sportswear as well as works by a diverse group of contemporary designers.
In addition, filmmaker Melina Matsoukas will create an open-ended film to project in the galleries.
Meanwhile, part two, called In America: An Anthology of Fashion, will focus on the development of American fashion by presenting narratives that relate to the "complex and layered histories" of those spaces.
Regarding the theme of the exhibitions, Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, explained that there was no better moment than the present to focus on the evolution of style in the U.S.
"Over the past year, because of the pandemic, the connections to our homes have become more emotional, as have those to our clothes. For American fashion, this has meant an increased emphasis on sentiment over practicality," he commented.
"Responding to this shift, Part One of the exhibition will establish a modern vocabulary of American fashion based on the expressive qualities of clothing as well as deeper associations with issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Part Two will further investigate the evolving language of American fashion through a series of collaborations with American film directors who will visualise the unfinished stories inherent in The Met's period rooms."
