The Entire History of The Met Gala

the metgala is an institution at this point the biggest Fashion Event of the year and for good reason is one of the biggest and flashiest campaigns for Museum donations in the world and simply just very entertaining for us as Spectators but where did it all begin and how did it evolve into the phenomenon that it is today the metgala itself as a function really stems from its roots as a premiere for the costume institute's exhibitions so to understand the necessity of such a colossal event I'd like to begin this timeline all the way back in the 1920s when two sisters Irene lewison and Alice Lewis and Crowley began collecting clothes that may be used as costumes for the stage different historical cultural and geographical Garb at this time the collection was just a collection but by 1939 it was established as the Museum of costume art on Fifth Avenue in New York thanks in part to the involvement of aen Burstein who according to her autobiography had always been a natural collector together the women would oversee several exhibitions that starting in 1940 would be in collaboration somewhat with the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is where it seems that they held their shows in the basement according to all the sources I checked they weren't yet storing their collection in the museum this was purely used as a functional display area but it does mean that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has kept a full Archive of images of the exhibitions on their archive site which are linked below and I highly recommend you look through because it is just phenomenal however this video is about the Gara itself not about the museum and things would soon take a bit of a turn for the worst because during the war on the 4th of April 1944 Irene lewison would pass away of lung cancer at Doctor's Hospital in New York leaving a huge gap in their philanthropic business in herstead Lord and Taylor board of directors member and founding member of the Fashion Group Dorothy shaver would come in specifically to further the charity she was already personally interested in American fashion have been an enormous champion of American fashion for over a decade at this point and believed that the Museum of costume art would serve as inspiration for American designers and act as encouragement to American consumers to consider American coutures in the years after the war and yet her influence would be far greater than expected because in 1945 she would become the first woman in history to be the president of a multi-million doll company when she took over from Walter hoving as the president of Lord and Taylor she became a real force in fashion and retailing and as such in 1947 was able to provide the heft that the charity needed to place it in a more esteemed establishment namely the Metropolitan Museum of Art the only catch they would need to provide $150,000 over $2 million today needed for the transfer to the museum themselves the solution of course was the costume Institute Gara conceived by publicist and founder of New York Fashion Week Elanor Lambert who along with shaver believed that the exhibition would have an immense impact on American design as such the very first costume Institute Gala was planned as a midnight event to wine and Dy New York's High Society in an effort to acrw further donations on top of the $50 ticket fee The Collection was an educationally Focus display it didn't have a theme neither did the gala and that was held in December in various locations so it was a mile away from how we know the Met Gala today but as a surprise to all was a smash success raising $350,000 at the party alone which today would be just shy of $5 million enough to fund the collection's new location for an entire year and becoming quickly known colloquially as the party of the year but little changed over the years and as a result through the 1950s and 1960s the exhibitions became a little dry and stale their yearly costume instit Gala was still the party of the year and still funded the exhibition well but after the party it wasn't necessarily the highlight of an average trip to New York instead the most interesting thing to happen for the exhibition and the gala at this time was that James J rorer took over as the Met director in 1955 taking over from Francis Henry Taylor and it was he who noticed that the exhibition had become quite low-key and patchy so absorbed The Collection into the museum in 1960 turning it from a semi-autonomous venture into one now curated by the museum so though all the funding would still need to be found by their own fundraising it's likely that it's at this point that the gala was able to be held regularly in the museum itself and yet still little change in fact it wasn't until 1966 when Roma would die suddenly of a heart attack in his sleep that the blackluster exhibition and Gala held in the basement would find New Life breathed into it this would come by the way of Tomas hoving who was the son of Walter hoving who Dorothy shaver had replaced at Lord and Taylor but unlike his predecessor he believed museums should be both educational and entertaining where one's mind may be expanded upon and interested by way of Discovery he immediately changed the museum strategy of procurement to one focused on truly individual pieces so quality over quantity which though of course did not have a direct influence on the costume institute's Acquisitions it catalyzed the idea to theme the collections around a title with the first being the art of fashion this in turn would heavily influence the esteem of the exhibition and therefore the desirability for guests to attend the Gara which was at this point still a dwindling party you see this really was a breakthrough in how any Museum would look at presentation going for the edutainment factor over purely educational motivations and of course would come to affect Museum curation from then on while in respect to the Gara hoving identified that this was the ticket that the museum needed to transform it into a money spinner and crowd puller improving the desirability for the party would allow a higher ticket price and encourage more generous donations but he couldn't do it alone he needed the help of a publicist namely he needed the return of Elena Lambert quickly Lambert turned things around she may not have had the respect for procedure that hoving desired but she was instrumental improving hing's intuition correct this was going to be the Museum's next huge money spinner so they invested closing their door in 1968 to totally transform the space by making it larger and introducing better storage facilities the exhibition would really still be only held in the basement of the museum but it was an enormous step up from where they had come eventually in 1971 the museum was reopened now with construction completed all the while Elena Lambert had continued to raise money for the ongoing expansion however when the time came to pick a new curator hoving in instead chose to approach the next exhibition with a return to the scholarly approach led by Adolf cavalo but in comparison cavalo's exhibition fell flat it didn't have that creative Sparkle that Lamberts had had and it ended up being a real stain on the museum quote these tensions resulted in the waning of cavalo's star and a vacuum that hoving found difficult to fill by 1972 cavalo had already quit and hoving really needed someone to come in and do what cavalo could not he needed someone to make the costume Institute Gala come back to prominence once more and make it the money maker he knew it could be who that woman could be he just didn't know as it happened instead the idea came from Theodore rouso then the curator and chief of the met and the museum secretary Ashton Hawkins their solution was Diana bre Diana was a real force in the fashion industry cled for being a groundbreaking fashion editor of Vogue and before them of Harper bizar in her documentary the eye has to travel they go over her many editorial accomplishments as really the first fashion editor in the capacity one would think of a fashion editor today she was highly creative highly motivated and seemed to be able to foresee aesthetic Trends before they had happened or influence all of America her to what she saw as stylish she was fashion but she was expensive this really would be the big hesitation of hoving to take her on board that and the fact that she had never worked in a commercial capacity before but actually Diana also was unsure she was the right fit too she simply thought she wasn't academic enough to take on the role remembering that back in these days the museum wasn't really for entertainment as much as education so neither party were really on board with the idea at least not until Diana became more ill later that year and the prospect of Financial Security was too enticing while for hoving his convincing came from freeland's Friends Mela agnelli Jackie Kennedy Onasis babe paly and Mona bismar who all agreed to pay half of freeland's salary in the end reeland signed only a one-year contract in July 1972 as a special consultant to the museum responsible for generating ideas organizing the exhibitions and actualizing them she also had to oversee extra ideas for generating donations and act as a link between the museum the fashion press and the fashion industry worldwide all for the sum of $225,000 per anom and a secret $110,000 expense account however Diana's first few months went nowhere near as smoothly as one may have thought you see the museum had already planned its next exhibition which was to come in March 1973 as the close of the Duke of Windsor who had recently died on the 18th of May 1972 having said that while the agreements had already been set up by Ashton Hawkins and The Duchess of Windsor's private secretary John utter this was really only a tentative plan because the duchess was unsure if she wanted the exhibition to happen at all Diana very much attempted to keep the relationship between the museum and The Duchess well but the duchess was just really not in a good place after the death of her husband and eventually decided that she didn't want the collection to go ahead this was a real spanner in the works for Diana she had never put together an exhibition before the museum really wasn't in solid Financial standing and it was honestly a relief to have her first exhibition theme be directed to her but now she would have to come up with her own concept quickly famously deciding on Christal Balenciaga in terms of the exhibition curation vand having Source nearly every piece shown in the collection personally fought endlessly with the me curators who had more of a historic academic chronological approach to curation Freeland cared very little for that and instead brought a wave of creative fantasy that inspired the guests at the gala immediately firstly she covered the mannequins inspired by scaparelli custom avangard mannequins from a brand named SCH Slappy secondly she displayed the clothes next to the art that had inspired it as a way to legitimize the exhibition as a whole and third she put the dresses on podiums so they didn't have to be inhibited by plexiglass and would look larger than guests so while it was historically accurate thanks to Stella Bloom it was the combination of these three creative things these three Innovative things that really made the gala a Marvel once more as guests were evidenced of her true curational Talent meaning that while to the public the exhibition garnered 150,000 guests in just 6 months more importantly it enticed the fashion industry to jump on board truly for the first time this came by the way of Oscar delara who decided that the cfda to whom he was president president would become a benefactor of the costume Institute but it wasn't the exhibition he had his eyes on it was the Gara however something I must tell you at this point is that in fact Diana wasn't overly concerned with the party at all she had little involvement with it as it was primarily organized by the Museum's development office so while Diana vand is often credited with hosting the First costume inst tuala in March 19 1973 it was really Oscar's idea to turn the premiere into the iteration we know today for the second exhibition titled the 10s the 20s the 30s inventive close 1909 to 1939 in December 1973 specifically it was Oscar deara who transformed it from an industry event to one where High Society could meet those influential in fashion it was he who turned it into a glamorous Elite event where one was lucky to pay handsomely for a ticket immediately the Gara was a shining star izy Miaki had commissioned the second show to debut in Japan after it finished its run in 1975 Bill blast said it had the most shattering effect on fashion and resulted in 400,000 visitors almost three times the first exhibition any naysayers from breeland's first show like Calvin Klein were hushed and this brought a whole new wave of promotion to the exhibition including for the first time a focus on the clothes that the guests themselves wore after Sher famously wore her semi-nude Bob Macky gown beginning the tradition of guests trying to outdo one another from this point onwards the party would be an institution in fashion as an Insider event held once a year usually in December in 1974 they had romantic and glamorous Hollywood design the first to include Hollywood costume instead of historical costume or Couture designers and the first to see vand have hordes of volunteers work with her expanding on her two previous volunteers Andre Leon Tali and ton Goodman from which the resulting Buzz garnered 800,000 visitors four times more than the Museum's most successful exhibition to date in 1975 American women of style became the first exhibition to be based around specific individual people including Isadora Duncan Elsie dwarf ger vanderbel Whitney and Josephine Baker also marking the first time a black woman was comparably placed in the same stylistic leagues as her white counterparts in 1976 they had the glory of Russian costume which I believe was freeland's favorite and in 1977 they showed Vanity Fair a treasure Trove a show that received half a million visitors the shows obviously were an enormous success each one more expensive to attend than the previous but each one increasingly worth it however when Philip deont belloo took over from Thomas hoving he was unhappy he felt that the party of the year was turning the museum into a fce that it was more of a party than a serious exhibition but frankly he was wrong what vand and delara had done was to return the people to the museum but also he wasn't wrong the museum had become far less about historical accuracy and far more about spectacle visual appeal and commercialism which unfortunately would go on to be the Museum's biggest critique between 1977 and 1982 his complaint was kind of valid and yet while these complaints were unignorable they had little to no effect on public response and Gala attendance which continued to grow annually and even inspired other countries to begin their own fashion exhibition including the VNA and the LOF both of which would have never existed without frein's groundbreaking exhibitions in this time they had dagalo costumes and designs of the ballet root in 1978 Fashions of the hapsburg era Austria Hungary in 1979 the Manu dragon costumes of India the Ching Dynasty in 1980 the 18th century woman in 1981 which includes the first example I could find of these two guests whose names I do not know dressing heavily to theme and leel po in 1982 all before their most controversial exhibition of all 1983's e sonon the eve sonon exhibition is famously the Met gala's most controversial exhibition in history the conversation revolved around how a living designer could possibly be considered art that if his journey was still going how could this be the Pinnacle of his work but Diana didn't care she really didn't see Fashion's art anyway but also recognized that there is great art in what he does it was exactly this dichotomy that caused Buzz however this really was a conversation about the Met exhibition as opposed to the gala itself which seemed to go off without a hitch in fact really the next nugget of information we have about the history of the gala itself comes after the 1984 exhibition titled man and the horse after the 1985 Gala costumes of Royal India but still within that same year you see though Diana didn't really ever plan these parties she was the reason they had become so Buzzy and a person that the audience looked forward to seeing in attendance but in 1985 it became public that vand was notably ill after for the very first time she missed her own Met Gala her place at the table was left empty and her absence was palpable in the room the truth was she had been sick since 1976 her third year in the museum during which time she had slowly been going blind she hid it very well obviously and was still incredibly good at her job regardless really the only reason this became known in 1985 was because she came down with another illness empyema her empyema affected her greatly it became harder to get up and to move around to find breath even and from 1985 the symptoms have become so bad that she began to work from home she continued to be the face of the museum she knew her presence was valuable but from this moment she had a significantly reduced hand in the exhibitions and relied heavily on her a camp Steven Jale her research assistant catel Lai and the Museum's curatorial staff member gan druso to put together her coordinations the following show 1986's dance therefore would in fact be entirely Diana's final exhibition for the gallery in her absence still the party was a hit around 2850 people attended 850 paying for a dinner while the remaining 2,000 paying $125 to join the dance by 1987 it was clear vand couldn't return she kept her title at the museum for they both knew how vital she was at making connections to grow the collection and socially she was still a Powerhouse as well but because of this the exhibitions were broken into two a year while the party remained in December of each year sort of Untied to the exhibitions and just named after the upcoming one the one exception to this was 1987's a tribute to Diana vand sometimes also called dinner with DV tickets were a record figure of $850 for the dinner a tribute the following year they returned to form for 1988's from Queen to Empress Victorian dress 1837 to 1877 and 1989's the age of Napoleon costume from Revolution to Empire 1789 to 1815 however that same year Breeland finally succumbed to her illness and the Mets costume Institute was left with a very large unfillable hole certainly noticed from what was her half finished final exhibition and corresponding metgala in 1990 deod fashion dolls the survival ofure I believe Harold coder took over the curatorial role while it was Pat Buckley who then began organizing the parties at this time with Oscar delara who was also still involved however because of the enormous Gap left in her wake 1991 became the first year since Inception there was just no theme given for the costume Institute Gala because the whole exhibition itself was cancelled entirely following this there were two exhibitions and gers held to attempt to recuperate some of that electricity that vand had introduced half a century before this of course was 1992's fashion and history a dialogue and 1993's Diana vand in moderate style before in 1993 Richard Martin took over as curator with help from Harold coda specifically tasked with curing their now very obvious problem there was no razzled Dazzle no one was enticed to come to their party by 1994's orientalism visions in the east and west and dress in honesty the party had fallen off the social calendar and it was a huge blow to the financial state of the museum as if you remember the costume Institute had to be self-funded they literally needed the costume Institute Gala to stay open so they needed someone equally as connected but equally influenced and independent as freom was to come in and save them that of course would be Anna Wintour then already editor and Chief of American Vogue really it's unclear who put Anna forward for this role but it was Oscar delarent himself and his wife Annette who put the phone call into her and really she was the Perfect cast even by her first Met Gala in 1995 simply named a coutur she was already a phenomenal success of course Anna was already known as well for throwing incredible industry events a study taught to her by her father so she really just took to the party like a fish to water diming it around Harold koda's exhibitions and working most directly with Stephanie Winston walkoff who had already been a planner for the costume Institute Gara already under people like Oscar delara and Pat Buckley however Anna's gas weren't quite the event we know of the Met Gara today just yet apart from Princess Diana's appearance at the 1996 Christian Dior themed Gala in which she wore John galliano's first Dior coutour dress and matching toned lady Dior bag not really a ton changed between her first and second parties culturally it was significant after the Dior Gala because of Diana but that obviously didn't come to affect the event until the third anawin Tor Gala in 1997 titled Giani Vace this really was Anna's first true hit Galla it raised a record of $2.3 million for the museum and truly brought back some kind of desirability to the event but unfortunately the momentum just didn't lead anywhere as the following years's Gala called cubism and fashion failed to hit major headlines simply there was no buzzworthy story for the papers and the public to talk about but it was this juer position between 1997 and 19 1998 that inspired the biggest change Anna would ever introduce to the party the idea of corporate sponsorship of tables truly it's not 100% clear if this was begun by Anna in 1999 for rock style but the first documented example comes from this Met Gala in which she plans her party around charging $275,000 per table as opposed to previously where all the sales are dis C measured by ticket this changed the function fundamentally while it had always been an industry event for New York socialites as it was their opportunity individually to be seen now under Anna it would reframe guests as a representative or as an ambassador not of themselves but of the brand who invited them while the brand is then permitted to invite whichever Anna approved guest they so choose rich or otherwise this really changed the dynamic of family and friends of the Rich and connected to the most buzzworthy guests who were potentially rich but definitely famous something that would come to greatly affect public interest in the event and it was extremely successful right from the jump making $3 million for the museum so Anna had found her Smoking Gun and yet another problem was about to reveal in the year 2000 Anna had wanted to put on a retrospective of Chanel's work however then head of Chanel Carl Lagerfeld who had revived the brand many decades before really wasn't a fan of fashion in museums in the first place and was already questioning if he wanted the retrospective to go ahead when ingred siski of interview magazine convinced him that this was a slight because retrospectives were for designers on their way out and Carl had had a few Rocky years at Chanel the museum also was suffering because their curator Richard Martin had just died leaving it to the hands of their curatorial team then led by Harold Coda which even though Harold Coda is very talented caused less stability for Carl to feel comfortable as a result on the 20th of May 2000 the entire Gala and exhibition couple was cancelled for the first time since Inception and monumentally changed the Met Gala from here on out you see because they needed a year to produce the replacement exhibition jacn Kennedy the White House years would be the first Met Gala hosted in spring now moved from its usual December spot to the 23rd of April 2001 so obviously not yet the first Monday in May and actually really a couple of years went by without much change to Anna's new format first the cancel 2002 Gala following the September 11th attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 and then 2003 goddess the classical mode which was Andrew Bolton's first exhibition curation which brings us to 2004's dangerously aison fashion and Furniture in the 18th century as this year was the year Amber valeta when in this Ensemble after being encouraged by Anna winto to dress extremely to theme in a costumey way she goes over this in her Vogue 15 looks from 1993 to now and she describes that she was actually mocked for this Ensemble and yet despite this it was a real breakthrough for the evolution of the costume Institute Gala in which slowly but surely it would become a quasy costume party of course she wasn't the first to dress this heavily to theme there was the 1981 couple I mentioned earlier as well as Stella McCartney and Liv Tyler very famously in 1999 who dressed to The Rock theme and it wasn't immediate either because the public still weren't invested as they are now but it was notable because this 2004 look really pushed the boulder that had begun rolling this was very noticeable really in the following years costume Institute Gala in 2005 for the finally achieved Chanel retrospective named the house of Chanel in which several guests showed up either in Chanel or in Chanel esque designs not every everyone obviously but a noticeable amount for it to become much more of a trend and yet the 2005 costume Institute ball was far more noticeable for another detail That Was Then unnoticed as it was this that would be the first Gala ever held on the first Monday in May beginning a tradition that still holds true so everything we know of the metgala today except the fact that it wasn't yet called the Met Gala had been in place since 2005 but it still wasn't at the social importance that it boasts today really the exact date this opinion changed is always going to be subjective as everyone gets on board with movements at different times but it was around this time that it started to transform into pop culture for you perhaps it was McQueen's Tartan looks with sah Parker for 2006's anglomania tradition and transgression in British fashion maybe it was 2007's pu king of fashion 2008's superheroes fashion and fantasy 2009's The modelers Muse embodying fashion or maybe it was 2010's American woman fashioning a national identity but to me personally the tide turning became very noticeable after the 2011 exhibition angala named Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty it was a phenomenon at the time and resulted into a large amount of people including most of the people I knew in both America and England when the exhibition traveled to the VNA to go and see this exhibition even my own parents went because it was such a cultural moment following his very shocking death it became really a benchmark for which attendance at the exhibitions were measured and brought a significant amount of attention to the costume Institute Gala as a concept however I do think there is an argument to be made that this exhibition was famous for the exhibition while the Gara itself became more famous a couple of years later after 2012 scaparelli and Prada impossible conversations after 2013's Punk chaos to Couture and after 2014's Charles James Beyond fashion because appearing it was Rihanna's look for 2015's China through the Looking Glass that simply exploded the event itself into everyone's radar and made majority of people really start paying attention to what the guests were wearing for the event of course this came with criticisms that it had become Fashion's Halloween party but Hanna winto never minded a cure costume party inherently it was her that pushed for it to go that route anyway and it gave the event a really unique USP which is unique selling point as a result really from here the costume Institute Gala truly became a talking point every single year we all remember Taylor Swift and Zena for 2016's Manis Machina fashion in an age of Technology we remember Rihanna's looks both for 2017's Ray kawakubo com dearon art of the inet and 2018 Heavenly Bodies fashion and the Catholic imagination as well as honestly most of the looks from 2019s Camp notes on fashion an event so buzzworthy that Andre leonal was Ed in his carpet interviewing role to be replaced by younger more pop culture famous interviewer Liza Koshi this then brings us to 2020 in which the final major change to the costume inst to Gala would very noticeably happen you see after the gala was canceled in the spring due to covid the third canceled Gala in history in December 2020 the Metropolitan Museum of Art would officially rename the entire event to its slang name the Met Gala something popularized many years before but never officially recognized until now finally completing our timeline of the metgala by this point now with Emma Chamberlain doing the interviews the metgala really is an institution on which we watch every year judging the looks each celebrity wears whether it's Scandal like Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn monr dress it's confusion like Jared Leto's chipet costume or in or like Michaela Cole's scaparelli gown it's really the the biggest ball running today and a real pillar of what High Society used to look like it's just now we have much more of an insight to it than ever before and now that a ticket cost $50,000 far less chance of going thank you so much for watching make sure you like And subscribe for more videos like this one in the future check out my beauty channel underskin for videos like this one but about Beauty Brands and a special thank you goes out to my patrons over on patreon some of whose names are on the screen now all content used in this video is done so in accordance with the principles of fair use however if you have any concerns please contact me directly at contact. co.uk

Channel: understitch,

Views: 197,694

Keywords: fashion marketing, fashion branding, fashion retailing, retail marketing, designer brands, fashion history, the met gala, diana vreeland, anna wintour, the costume institute gala, andrew bolton, harold koda, dorothy shaver, andre leon talley, irene lewisohn, alice lewisohn crowley, aline bernstein, met gala history

Id: xmy4Hgkkvls

Length: 35min 6sec (2106 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024