Fashion’s big night out became just another night in this year. The postponing of the Met Gala, the annual red carpet extravaganza, earlier this month left stylists, celebrities, and their fans disappointed. But thanks to an Instagram challenge from Vogue magazine and actor Billy Porter, fans haven’t let this coronavirus cancellation stop them from celebrating high fashion.
Like all things in this era, the Met Gala is taking place on a smaller scale from home this month. Using the hashtag #MetGalaChallenge, those creatively inclined have been recreating their favorite Met Gala looks from home, with results ranging from hilarious to truly impressive.
Like the Getty Museum’s quarantine challenge, pets and children are a common theme, as it the creative reuse of everyday items from the home.
Though the challenge has provided some light-hearted relief for those of us mourning all the gatherings and events we’re currently missing out on, these tributes can’t help fund the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute like the Gala does. The annual May event is their biggest fundraiser, raising $15 million last year.
The theme of this year's Gala and its accompanying exhibit was set to be About Time: Fashion and Duration. "Ghost curated" by Virginia Woolf, the theme was a tribute to the Met's 150th anniversary, being celebrated this year. The exhibit "will trace more than a century and a half of fashion, from 1870 to the present, along a disruptive timeline... Employing philosopher Henri Bergson’s concept of la durée—time that flows, accumulates, and is indivisible—the exhibition will explore how clothes generate temporal associations that conflate the past, present, and future."
The restaged event is set to take place on October 29, which will hopefully help the Met recoup some of the $150 million in losses they anticipate a result of COVID-related summer closures.
