by Last year’s Met Ball cost around £6 million to stage and raised £22 million. Profits went to the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, once a somewhat dusty institution that even its curator at the time, Harold Korda, described as a “benign tumor”, and the Met’s “cleaner” art departments on that forget.
Then Anna Wintour came in 1995 with a vision – for the Institute, which has since been renamed after her, but more importantly, for the accompanying party, which has long since put on any fashion shows the Institute has put on.
You can’t argue with money in New York. The Met Ball is becoming less and less about clothes – some guests on Monday evening looked like they were wearing nothing, others didn’t wear them in the usual sense – and more about money (“the big brands “). and power (Anna Wintour’s).
The brands decide whether they want to fork out $75,000 for a single ticket and at least $350,000 for a table. And Wintour decides just about everything else. Brands pay; she is fine who they call. And they match—for the most part (in 2014, Madonna posted her first choice of Met outfit on social media, explaining that Wintour rejected it).
The event itself lasts no more than an hour – the celebrities arrive in hierarchical order, at least to the most famous, which means the A-listers spend less time milling around. A short dinner, and a cursory glance at the corresponding exhibition, then it’s off to the parties in a row.
Wintour may be a divisive character, but she is a businesswoman. “There is not a single deed, look or gesture that the Met does not negotiate,” an experienced reporter tells me.
Accept an invitation from Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez. Until five minutes ago, the entire industry was laughing at the woman – just like the Kardashians were before Wintour finally gave Kim Kardashain a ticket in 2013, when she was aligned with Kanye West and she was too big to ignore to do. (Kanye, by the way, is not allowed these days).
Wintour, who seems to be happy to be treated like a fool by certain celebrities to encourage clicks, ordered Sanchez’s stunning Oscar de la Renta gown for the evening, which ensured she was seen as one viable fashion. Why? According to New York MagazineShe is keen to consider Sanchez’s husband, Jeff Bezos, to acquire Condé Nast.
Entry to the Met is entry to the world of fashion, which then turns on the money tap. Brands will court you to be one of their ambassadors. If you’re already one, their data retrieval programs will trawl the internet to measure how many times media outlets use your photo to check their ROI.
It’s not just actors and musicians who will benefit. Makeup and hair artists will Instagram the products they use to prepare their clients in hopes of a contract. And boy are there plenty of products (Kim Kardashian said US Vogue that she spent 14 hours getting her hair dyed blonde for the 2022 Met Gala). One veteran of several Mets tells me it would take her two solid days to prepare, “and that was back in the day, before it went crazy. And I’m not even a celebrity. By the time you’ve started microblading the eyebrows, gone through the fake tanning, the $3000 facials for hair and make-up, it’s a solid 48 hours.”
That’s a big estimate if you also want to lose weight, although Ozempic has made significant refinements on that side of things. (If TikTok, a Met Ball sponsor at some point, is banned in the United States, how long before Ozempic is invited to become a co-sponsor?). For that same ball that needed all that peroxide, Kim Kardashian lost 21 pounds to squeeze into the beaded Bob Mackie dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to serenade JFK in 1962. Kardashian was only at the ball for 20 a minute or so. That is not the point. The pictures went viral. Their pixels will probably still be spinning when everything else is dust.
You can’t say KK isn’t committed to pleasing Wintour. There are reports that she struggled to breathe in this year’s look – a tiny fitted Margiela dress. Tyla, a singer from South Africa, had to be carried up the stairs by various bodyguards because LuluLemon was not comfortable on her ‘sand sculpture’, Perspex Balmain dress. At least people are talking about her.
If this doesn’t sound like a load of fun, it’s not meant to be. Amy Schumer once said the whole thing was “punishment”. Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t a fan either and said in 2013 that she wouldn’t attend again. But in 2019 she was. Sometimes a celebrity needs to be there if only to prove to themselves that they still exist.
This year’s sponsors must hope that there will be no doubt about what it is now. Loewe, headed by northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson, dressed a handful of celebrities and demanded a handful of outfits in the exhibition. It’s no coincidence that Anderson also designed the costumes for him Challengers – the tennis movie with Josh O’Connor and Zendaya, out now – which Zendaya, co-host of the event, is also promoting. It’s all connected.
Given Loewe’s prominent role in Monday’s events, its conglomerate owner, LVMH, with its other, much larger brands, had a much lower event. Louis Vuitton, for example, the biggest player at LVMH, did not even take a table, and if anyone wore Vuitton on the red carpet, the pictures are still to come. Chanel hasn’t had much of a scene either – only Sofia Coppola so far. Meanwhile Elizabeth Debicki was the biggest ambassador for Dior, who was very involved with the Oscars. A small number of Hollywood A-listers were also there, amid speculation that the protests at Columbia University, which spilled onto several streets, were a factor in discouraging them.
Others have noted that while the Challengers The scheduling was now, the general time of this pain is so far out that it is almost longer than the satire. It is not just the case in Gaza. Closer to home, Condé Nast USA is in turbulent negotiations with its unionized staff as it grapples with payoffs and planned layoffs. At the end of last year, Anne Hathaway managed to shoot Vanity Fair, in an apparent show of sympathy for the union. Perhaps other celebrities did not want to find themselves in a potential hurricane of moral outrage of others, and one organized by a publishing house that is seen as “problems” more often.
But somehow an insider tells me, “No one wants to pick on Anna. This thin white woman stands judging everyone and no one ever questions it.” Written by Amy Odell Anna: The Biography (2022) that Wintour actually approves of 80 percent of the looks seen on The Met Ball’s red carpet (or green this year). Celebrities are willing to go along because studios only pay stylists when they have a movie to hawk. So if AW wants to oversee your appearance, fine. She may not do it in person but you will get a Vogue stylist to help you connect with the important brands of the moment and pull it all together.
Who decides which brands are important? It’s 100 percent a Wintour show. If you’re wondering why a tiny label like Erdem, or Harris Reed, gets exposure, it’s because Wintour is a fan. That’s why Chloé should have five celebrities who moved as one all night (the clothes looked better grouped than the whey); why Balenciaga has been seen on several celebrities (Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts) when so many people will not be in touch with it due to its involvement in a child sex scandal in 2022… it’s all Will of Wintour.
Such is the case with John Galliano, who has largely kept a low profile since his anti-Semitic ravings in 2010. Wintour is apparently determined to rehabilitate Galliano professionally. Zendaya Galliano wore vintage from one of his Dior collections. The Bad Bunny rapper recently wore Maison Margiela, the brand Galliano now designs for, including some furry millinery that some have compared to a doormat. (I wonder if Galliano realized it looked a bit like an Orthodox rabbit hat?)
Wintour is keen to promote Galliano, according to that New York Magazine, she wanted this entire exhibition to be dedicated to him. Powerful she can be. But sensitivities to current events are not a strong point. This, along with the lack of A-listers and the abundance of nepo children, will certainly prompt conversations about how that power is used.
