Met Gala 2019: Everything You Need To Know

The Costume Institute Gala at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is the biggest event on the fashion fundraising calendar. Founded by publicist Eleanor Lambert, the benefit was first held in 1948 to encourage donations from New York's high society. In its modern incarnation, the most famous faces from the realms of fashion, film, music and art come together to raise money for the Met's Costume Institute and celebrate the grand opening of its latest exhibition. The night is centred on the theme of the new exhibition, with previous themes encompassing everything from Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, to Manus x Machina, Punk: Chaos to Couture and China: Through the Looking Glass. This year's exhibition theme is Camp: Notes On Fashion.

Since 1995, the event has been chaired by US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who enlists public figures to serve as her co-chairs. Past hosts have included Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Amal Clooney and Rihanna. The Met Gala 2019, which marks the event's 71th anniversary, will be co-chaired by Lady Gaga, Alessandro Michele, Harry Styles and Serena Williams.

The Met Gala takes place on the first Monday of May, which this year falls on May 6th. Red-carpet coverage normally begins at 7pm local time, when team Vogue will begin reporting on all the outfit details.

Where will the Met Gala 2019 take place?

The Met Gala always takes place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The night begins with a cocktail hour, in which guests walk the red carpet and explore the new exhibition, before sitting down to dinner and the evening's performances. The odds are on Lady Gaga and Harry Styles, this year's co-chairs, to take to the stage.

What is the Met Gala 2019 theme?

Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute, has framed the exhibition around Susan Sontag’s seminal 1964 essay Notes on "Camp", which posited different ways in which the concept could be construed. Bolton told Hamish Bowles that he found Sontag’s writings so timely with what is going on culturally and politically that, “[he] felt it would have a lot of cultural resonance.”

Featuring some 200 fine art and fashion objects, the contents of the exhibition will trace the origins of the subject from the 17th century, specifically the court of Versailles, to the present day. "Basically, we go from sun kings to drag queens,” American Vogue editor Anna Wintour said at a press conference in February. A preview of the Johnny Dufort-lensed catalogue indicates that looks from Moschino’s spring/summer 2017 collection, Gucci’s autumn/winter 2016 offering and Off-White’s pre-fall 2018 edit will feature within the walls of the Met. That Marjan Pejoski swan dress will sit in the display cases alongside a fabulous Schiaparelli flamingo ensemble. And there are myriad Jeremy Scott – “the king of camp” – pieces on offer.

Speaking at the February press summit, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele said: “This is a very important moment because we will collaborate on the creation of this fantastic exhibition that has a DNA that is related to my work, working to the expression of human nature... Camp is a beautiful word.” Michele also paid tribute to Karl Lagerfeld, adding, “I would like to seize this opportunity to thank Karl, who is no longer with us, who has been a great representative of fashion, and who had a great love for life and this kind of work.”

What will everyone wear to the Met Gala 2019?

“Camp: Notes on Fashion” is a fitting theme for the annual Met Gala, which itself is usually a stage for camp costumes, writes Vogue contributor Osman Ahmed in his exploration of the proposition. From Gucci, which is sponsoring the exhibition, to Valentino, Schiaparelli and even Demna Gvasalia’s Internet-fuelled camp fashion.