Each spring, like clockwork, the world turns its gaze to the grand steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where celebrities, designers, stylists, and very-online fashion enthusiasts converge in what can only be described as a baroque fever dream. There are gowns that defy gravity, tuxedos that flirt with gender, and entire looks constructed to live for a single photoshoot - and then, perhaps, be carefully archived away, if not instantly memeified.

The Met Gala - formally, the Costume Institute Benefit - is fashion´s most theatrical night. It is the Oscars, but for clothes. It is a prom, if your classmates were Rihanna, Timothée Chalamet, and half the cast of Euphoria. It is a ritual, a red carpet pilgrimage, a rotating exhibit of taste (mostly), power, and attention. No event captures the convergence of celebrity, couture, and cultural aspiration quite like it.

And yet, beyond the flashbulbs and livestreams, there is a tension that clings to the tulle. Because while the Gala dazzles, it also disorients. It arrives every year like a Swiss Atomic Clock, a visual feast against a backdrop of rising inequality, climate anxiety, mass displacement, and global precarity. And that contrast - between the shimmering surface and the darker undercurrent- raises questions that are harder to dress up. What does it mean to celebrate opulence in an era of austerity? What does it say that a $75,000-a-ticket fundraiser receives more attention than most humanitarian appeals? And what does it reflect back to the millions watching - not just those inside the marble halls, but those far outside its gates, screens glowing, swiping past archival silks and diamond-studded bodices?

To ask these questions is not to play the cynic or a takedown. The labor, creativity, and precision that go into the Met Gala are real, and often breathtaking. Designers work for months. Artisans embroider through the night. Stylists move mountains. And for many within the fashion world, the Gala is a rare moment when their work is acknowledged not just as trend or commerce, but as art. - And yes, we love you, Anna -. So let´s dive deeper into it. Where is the Met Gala coming from actually?

The Gala was established by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert (© of the original picture belongs to the rightful owner)

A Brief History of the Met Gala: From Society Ball to Global Stage

The Met Gala began in 1948 as a fundraising event to support the Metropolitan Museum of Art´s Costume Institute, which had formally merged with the Met just two years earlier, in 1946. Originally founded in 1937 as the Museum of Costume Art in New York City, an independent institution dedicated to the preservation and study of historical clothing and fashion operating separately from the Met, the Costume Institute was created to collect, preserve, and study historical dress and fashion as a form of cultural and artistic expression. In 1946, the Museum of Costume Art merged with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was renamed the Costume Institute, officially becoming a curatorial department within the Met. But within the hierarchy of the museum, fashion remained a marginal subject - viewed by many as decorative, commercial, or too ephemeral to be considered “serious” art.

The Gala was established by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, a pioneering force in American fashion, to generate financial support and cultural legitimacy for the Institute. For several decades, the event remained relatively low-profile: a black-tie dinner attended by figures from New York´s fashion, patrons of the arts, publishing, and philanthropic communities. The goal was straightforward - raise funds for exhibitions and acquisitions - without the red carpet theatrics or global media coverage we associate with the Gala today. During the 1950s through the early 1970s, it often took the form of multiple fundraising dinners or events throughout the year, held at various venues such as the Waldorf Astoria or Central Park’s Rainbow Room. The main focus was only fundraising fashion´s place in the museum landscape - not producing a singular, globally broadcast spectacle.

That changed in the 1970s, when legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland joined the Costume Institute as a special consultant. Vreeland brought with her a curatorial imagination that transformed both the exhibitions and the annual fundraiser. She introduced the now-standard practice of organizing the Gala around a specific theme tied to the opening of an exhibition - inviting guests to interpret the concept through their clothing. Under Vreeland´s direction, the event became more than a dinner; it became a form of cultural storytelling through fashion. The Gala began to grow in visibility and ambition, with each year offering a new opportunity to explore the aesthetic, historical, and symbolic power of dress.

legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (© Andy Warhol, Interview Magazine, 1980)

Anna Wintour´s Legacy

But the most significant evolution came in 1995, when Anna Wintour, then editor-in-chief of Vogue, assumed creative leadership of the event. With Wintour´s involvement came an entirely new level of visibility and influence. She redefined the Gala´s guest list, replacing traditional society figures with actors, musicians, designers, athletes, and global celebrities. The event was transformed from a fashion industry fundraiser into an international cultural spectacle. Media became choreographed moments of brand identity, and the Gala itself became a kind of unofficial awards show for fashion - where designers debuted statements and celebrities vied for viral relevance.

Under Wintour´s leadership, the Met Gala also became one of the most important fundraising events in the museum world, often raising over $15 - 26 million in a single evening. It cemented the Costume Institute´s position as one of the most visible departments at the Met, while also turning the Gala into a case study in the convergence of culture, commerce, and celebrity. Yet as the event has grown, so has its exclusivity. The Met Gala today is not simply a benefit; it is a highly controlled system of visibility. Attendance is by invitation-only, curated with care by Wintour and her team. Seating is strategic, and participation comes at a steep price. As of recent years, a single ticket costs between $35,000 and $75,000, while a table can range up to $300,000 or more, depending on placement and prominence. Designers and brands that purchase tables are expected to invite celebrities whom, in turn, are often dressed in the host´s designs - transforming the red carpet into a curated branding platform as much as a celebration of fashion.

The result is a “red” carpet that is less spontaneous expression and more tightly managed media production. What began as a fundraising dinner in support of fashion´s inclusion in art history is now one of the clearest windows into how cultural legitimacy, economic power, and aesthetic politics intersect in the 21st century.

Who Pays for Culture? The Met and the Politics of Private Funding

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is often thought of as a public institution. But like most major U.S. museums, its funding is largely private. While it receives some support from the city, the majority of its operations rely on donors, corporate sponsors, membership dues, and returns from a multibillion-dollar endowment. Decisions about what gets shown, preserved, and promoted are often influenced by those who fund them - not necessarily by the public the museum claims to serve.

Within this structure, the Costume Institute occupies an even more fragile position. It is the only department at the Met that must fully fund itself. It receives no internal subsidy, no baseline operating budget. Every exhibition, every acquisition, every conservation project depends entirely on external fundraising. That is why the Met Gala is essential for the maintenance of the Institute. It is a revenue model. The money it generates sustains the department. The visibility it creates helps secure fashion´s place within the museum’s hierarchy. But this also raises deeper questions about the politics of culture itself. What is culture? And who decides what counts as art?

Fashion has long been excluded from institutional definitions of “high” culture. For decades, fashion was dismissed as superficial, decorative, or unserious largely because it was associated with femininity. The labor, creativity, and semiotic of garments was seen as secondary to “real” culture. That marginalization wasn´t just about economics, obviously, it reflected deeper hierarchies about what kinds of knowledge, aesthetics, and creators are taken seriously. The Costume Institute´s very existence is proof of that fight. And even now, fashion remains conditionally accepted.

The Met, Fashion, and the Politics of Private Funding

If fashion is culture - as it undeniably is - then it merits the same institutional support and intellectual seriousness as painting, sculpture, photography, or architecture. The question is not whether fashion qualifies as art, but whether we are willing to recognize the systems that have historically excluded it. Fashion communicates values, identities, and yes, power. It encodes history in textiles, silhouettes, and ritual of dress. It shapes how bodies move through public space, how people express resistance or belonging, how gender, class, and aspiration are visually negotiated. Fashion is both material and symbolic - it is aesthetics in motion, embedded in time, politics, and labor. To treat it as peripheral is to ignore how culture actually functions. It is inseparable from culture - it is one of its most visible, most dynamic expressions.

But when fashion´s preservation depends on a privately funded, invitation-only event like the Met Gala, that institutional support becomes conditional. It is not built into the system - it must be earned through visibility, branding, and market relevance. The Met Gala is not just a celebration of fashion; it is a performance of its value for the approval of capital. In effect, the field must prove itself with every year in order to remain part of the museum´s program. So basically, fashion does not just belong to the museum - it has to keep proving that it deserves to be there. It is symbolic of how neoliberal cultural systems operate - where worth must be continually demonstrated, not assumed.

This is where structural politics emerge. When museums are forced to fund culture through spectacle, preservation becomes a transaction. Exhibitions are chosen not only for curatorial merit, but for sponsor compatibility. Programming follows media cycles and marketable themes. Acquisitions must appeal not just to history, but to hype. What gets displayed, collected, and remembered. Museums have the power to shape public memory. What they put on the walls or vitrines tells people what matters. But when Funding drives decisions, the archive becomes skewed. It is not always the most historically significant or culturally necessary work that gets preserved. Instead, it is what someone is willing to pay for, or what aligns with the interests of donors, brands, or media cycles.

Tony Benett - Museums as instruments of governance

Museums often must operate like cultural start-ups - curating not just knowledge, but investor confidence. As cultural theorist Tony Bennett has written, museums are not neutral spaces; they are instruments of governance. They do not simply reflect culture - they actively shape it. Through architecture, curation, and classification, they regulate cultural authority by defining what counts as art, who qualifies as an artist, and how the public is meant to engage with both. These decisions are not objective. They are embedded in historical, racial, gendered, and class-based hierarchies that have long privileged certain aesthetics, bodies, and narratives over others.

This gatekeeping is not abstract - it is institutional. It determines which objects are deemed worthy of preservation, which creators are canonized, and which identities are framed as “influence” rather than “innovation”. And when these determinations are influenced - directly or indirectly - by private donors, corporate sponsors, or elite social networks, cultural legitimacy becomes a commodity. The museum, rather than being a space for open inquire, becomes a filter.

When institutions are steered by private wealth, their function changes. While public forum implies open access, diverse voices, and critical dialogue, exhibitions funded by private capital, museums often align with their preferences - what is safe, glamorous, or prestige-enhancing. The institutions stops being a space for discovery or debate and starts functioning more like a branded environment - curated to maintain relationships and reputations. Instead of offering complex, critical, or controversial exhibitions, museums may prioritize what can be packaged for mass appeal, social media, or fundraising galas. Education becomes infotainment. Memory becomes PR, designed to maintain an image, not challenge the past.

Of course, this invites a necessary counterpoint: are governments founding any better? Not necessarily. Public institutions, too, have censored artists, silenced dissent, defunded controversial work, or prioritized state-sanctioned or nationalist narratives. Public funding is not inherently democratic - it reflects the politics of those in office. But the crucial difference is that public systems can be held publicly accountable. There is - at least in theory - a civic responsibility to serve broad cultural interests -not just elite tastes or market trends. When cultural institutions rely solely on private capital, that accountability disappears. What survives is what sells. What is remembered is what flatters. And what counts as “culture” is increasingly shaped by those with the power to fund it.

This is also what makes the Costume Institute´s position so politically charged. When a department´s existence depends on branding, spectacle, and elite approval, the definition of culture itself starts to narrow. What gets institutionalized as “art” often has less to do with innovation or relevance and more to do with affiliation - who is visible, who is funded. But art is not a credential. It is a practice, perspective, politics. And when the authority to define it lies with a small circle of gatekeepers - whether private donors or public institutions - we risk reducing creativity to status, and recognition into a luxury good.

Aurora James & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), 2021 (© of the original picture belongs to the rightful owner)

Strategic Access: Power, Visibility, and the Question of Who Gets In

A single ticket to the Met Gala reportedly costs around $75,000. A table can run as high as $350,000. These costs are typically covered by major fashion houses - Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci - who invite celebrities they intend to dress. The result is not just a high-profile parade of fashion, but a tightly controlled visual economy. Every appearance is part of a brand narrative. Every look serves a purpose - part fashion, part publicity, part institutional alignment, and part cultural monopoly.

For designers outside this circuit, access is limited. Purchasing a table independently is prohibitively expensive, and even if possible, entry into this curated system often depends on established networks of capital and cultural legitimacy. The barriers are even more pronounced for designers of color, who have historically been underrepresented in the industry´s highest-profile spaces. These barriers aren´t only economic - they are structural. Fashion still tends to reward proximity to legacy, money, and aesthetic familiarity - conditions not evenly distributed across race, gender, class, or geography.

In this context, Aurora James´s 2021 intervention stood out. That year´s Gala was themed “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” an open-ended title that was criticized by many for its lack of critical focus. James responded by making the theme tangible and political. Rather than aligning with a major house, she purchased a table herself and filled it with Black designers and creatives whose work had long been overlooked or sidelined in traditional fashion narratives.

Among them was Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, known for her progressive politics, advocacy for economic and racial justice, and support for policies such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and significantly, taxing the ultra-wealthy to fund public services and close systemic gaps. She wore a white Brother Vellies gown emblazoned with the phrase “Tax the Rich”. The reaction was obviously swift and divided. Some read it as contradictory, others called it opportunistic. Whatever…Her move was strategic. James gave her a platform and she used it. Far beyond Capitol Hill. The Gala generates global media coverage. A single image circulates more widely than any floor speech or policy memo. We still talk about it, aren´t we?

This is where the structure of the Gala matters. Because it is privately funded and operates outside public institutional oversight, the Gala can, at times, accommodate gestures that would be more difficult in state-funded contexts. In museums where programming is subject to government boards or public accountability, a statement like “Tax the Rich” might never make it to the exhibition floor. The Met Gala´s framework allows space - however narrow - for independent intervention. James didn´t need to convince a board. She needed to buy a table and share - with AOC and the independent designers. In doing so, she showed that the Gala, for all its exclusivity, can also be a platform - one that reflects not just power, but how power is used.

Superfine: Tailoring Black Style

It is difficult to draw a direct line between Aurora James´s 2021 intervention and the curatorial direction of the Met Gala in 2025. Themes for the Costume Institute´s exhibitions are typically developed two to three years in advance, often long before the public becomes aware of them. Still, from this vantage point, it seems plausible that something might begin to shift. Just four years after James used the Gala to challenge who gets seen, the institution centered “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” - an exhibition focused entirely on Black dandy, style, and historical influence. Whether her gesture directly informed that shift or not, the overlap is worth noting. Her use of the Gala demonstrated that high-visibility platforms can be redirected.

Yesterday, on May 5, 2025, the Met Gala unfolded beneath the theme “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, bringing long-overdue attention to the traditions of Black dandy-wear and its influence across centuries of fashion. Curated by Andrew Bolton, with scholarly guidance from Monica L. Miller, co-chaired by Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Wintour, the accompanying exhibition traced the legacy of Black tailoring from 18th-century portraiture to contemporary streetwear. This year´s dress code, “The Art of the Fit”, challenged guests to move beyond homage and into thoughtful interpretation. Whether they did a good or bad job, the exhibition inside offered a grounded narrative. Drawing on historical references and contemporary design, it traced a lineage of Black tailoring that spans centuries - across continents, contexts, and styles.

This year´s theme also bought modest but meaningful signs of inclusion, particularly among designers. While the Gala´s structural model - relying on brand sponsorships and high-priced tables - continues to favor established luxury houses, several Black designers were more prominently featured than in past years, at least. Their work was not confined to behind-the-scenes styling or symbolic gestures, but worn by high-profile guests in visible, intentional ways. The presence of voices like Monica L. Miller in the curatorial process further reinforced a shift in tone: Black fashion was not treated as decorative or derivative, but as a central cultural force. The event did not overturn the hierarchy - but it made space for a different kind of authorship.

Between Institutions and Influence

In recent years moment of direct intervention have shifted the way the Met Gala operates. When Aurora James purchased her own table in 2021 and invited Black independent designers, she challenged the institution from within, using access to highlight who had long been left out. When AOC wore a “Tax the Rich” gown into that same space, it was not an external critique - it was a statement embedded in the spectacle itself. And in 2025 - may be a result of Aurora James action -, Tailoring Black Style marked a turning point too: an exhibition centred on a marginalized cultural tradition, framed with care, and given the full weight of institutional support. Of course, it did not resolve the system´s contradictions, but it proved they could be made visible, at least.

Publicly funded museums may do host artists like Marina Abramovic´ or Cindy Sherman. But once their work enters the museum space, it becomes subject to a kind of institutional softening. The performance becomes historical. The critique becomes aesthetic. The edge is dulled. The contemporary turns into cemetery. The fact that it is been approved by a board, funded by taxpayers, and stamped as “educational” means it is already passed through layers of filtering. By contrast, what James or AOC did at the Met Gala was not curated or pre-approved, framed by wall text, or processed through academic interpretation. It was live, strategic, and unfiltered. It was a disruption within the structure. The Met Gala, because of its visibility created space for that kind of unscripted performance. So while publicly funded museums hold the authority of tradition, the Met Gala holds the volatility of image. And in a media-driven culture, volatility has more cultural reach than formality.

So…Do we need museums at all? Yes, I think so. Government or privately funded. To preserve memory, share knowledge, and offer cultural continuity. But we also need to remain clear-eyed: no museum tells the whole story, obviously. All institutions reflect their limitations, whether financial, political, or historical. Narratives are always shaped by what is shown, and what is left out. When marginalized cultures are included, we must ask: is this representation or appropriation? Whose voice is speaking? Whose voice is missing? Museums can frame a story - but they cannot complete it. And of course, we need to remember that fashion, art, and culture in general exist at the very top of Maslow´s pyramid. In a world of inequality this kind of cultural production is an indulgence of Western privilege.

Do we need the Met Gala? My voice is: Yes. It is not perfect, it should be restructured, it is a hell of an expensive production, exclusive, and entangled with capital. But the money funds cultural infrastructure. It allows for moments of real-time cultural intervention in a way that many public institutions do not. It shows us who is funding the museum, who is shaping the narrative. It is transparent. More importantly, the Gala funds a part of the museum that would otherwise be neglected. The Costume Institute doesn´t just showcase clothes - it preserves design, material culture, and the politics of dress. And yes, Anna Wintour - who, like many other women in visible positions, faces criticism no matter what she does, yet has continued to use her influence to keep fashion part of the cultural conversation.

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