By Aimee Bulger
Staff Writer
The theme of the 2024 Met Gala has been recently announced as “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” The theme celebrated the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit under the same name. The gala is set to take place on May 6, 2024.
The Met Gala itself is a charity event that uses its funds for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. According to Vogue Magazine, the event usually raises a sum of over eight figures for the institute.
“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” is an exhibit that honors approximately 250 works of fashion art, many of which are far too delicate to ever be worn again. The collection spans over 400 years of history in fashion, according to Vogue. The pieces will include designs by Schiaparelli, Dior, Givenchy and many other notable designers.
Many of the garments that are too fragile to be worn will be displayed in new ways to preserve their delicate nature. This includes light projection, video animation, CGI, artificial intelligence and other forms of sensory stimulation, according to Vogue. Pieces that are not too delicate will be laid in glass cases for display like the Sleeping Beauty princess herself.
Vogue also states that the exhibit will be focused around three main sections, those being Land, Sea and Sky. “It is very much an ode to nature and the emotional poetics of fashion,” stated Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu curator in charge of the Costume Institute, to Vogue.
The theme itself is a beautiful way to honor works of the past, but some fans and news outlets have speculated this to be a dig at Kim Kardashian herself. At the 2022 Met Gala, Kardashian controversially wore Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress. This sparked an outrage by many fashion connoisseurs, for several reasons.
The designer of the famous dress, Bob Mackie, spoke out on the topic, stating “It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress,” to Entertainment Weekly. The dress itself was a scandal and conversation starter for its time, and who else better to be the only person in history to wear it than the scandalous Marilyn Monroe herself?
Furthermore, rage was sparked when a photo of the back of the dress was revealed post-Met Gala. The dress had seemingly taken some damage after Kardashian donned it on the red carpet. The seam in the back had ripped quite a bit near the pelvic area. Several of the crystals had loosened or fallen off as well.
The dress had previously been on display in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum. According to AS, the museum was not going to relinquish the dress to Kardasian, until Kris Jenner stepped in for persuasion.
The irony between this delicate dress as a hot topic of conversation being so closely followed by a theme honoring delicate pieces of fashion is not lost on many. Curator Andrew Bolton and Vogue Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour have yet to comment on these speculations.
However, with the widely known dislike Wintour holds for the Kardashian bunch, it is not too far off that this theme could be timed and directed as a diss. Wintour reportedly moved her seat after Kim Kardashian arrived late, causing an entire fashion show to wait for her, according to Independent. Wintour then left the show early, reports stating she was irritated with the show being delayed for Kardashian. In the eyes of Wintour, reality stars never had a place at her gala to begin with, stated in an article by US Weekly, so dissing a Kardashian with a theme would not be a far leap to make.
