Met Gala 2022: Understanding the dress code and theme for the biggest night in fashion

It is time for the coveted Met Gala season again, which has people discussing and dissecting fashionable looks days and weeks prior to and post the actual event. This year, the Met Gala red carpet — an exclusive affair — will be held on May 2 in the US, and the event will be telecast live in India early morning on May 3.

After last year, the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute will unveil part two of the ‘American fashion exhibit’ this year, reports The Independent. The theme is ‘In America: An Anthology of Fashion’, which follows Met Gala 2021 — which took place in September — theme, ‘In America: A Lexicon of Fashion’.

It has gone back to the pre-pandemic date of being held on the first Monday in May. According to Vogue, the second installation Andrew Bolton — the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute — “centres on the tenets of American style and prizes the anonymous and unsung heroes of US design”.
Speaking about part one ‘In America: A Lexicon of Fashion’ and what visitors can expect from the second instalment, Bolton told the outlet, “They’re really engaging with the concept for the exhibition, which is this sort of new language for American fashion. That’s been really exciting…”

He added that the second part, ‘In America: An Anthology of Fashion’, has the potential to “draw even more feedback from visitors”.
He further told the outlet that the “stories really reflect the evolution of American style”, but they also explore the “work of individual tailors, dress-makers, and designers”, adding that one of the “main intentions of the exhibition is to spotlight the talents and contributions of these individuals, and many of them are women”.

Met Gala 2022 dress code
Just like the previous years, this year’s Met Gala event, too, will have a dress code. According to another Vogue report dated April 11, 2022, the dress code for the evening is mentioned at the bottom of the Met Gala invitations.

While in September 2021, for ‘In America: A Lexicon of Fashion’, the dress code was American independence, for ‘In America: An Anthology of Fashion’, it is “gilded glamour, white-tie”. Attendees are expected to look to ‘Gilded Age New York’ for inspiration, which is believed to be a time period in the country that spanned two decades, from 1870 to 1890, wherein there was “unprecedented prosperity, cultural change, and industrialization”.
Vogue noted that the “fashion during that period was one of excess”. “…fabric became faster and cheaper to produce” and “women’s dresses often featured a combination of many textiles, like satin, silk, velvet, and fringe, all adorned with over-the-top textures like lace, bows, frills, and ruffles”.

“Colours were rich and deep jewel tones. Lighter colours were only worn only at home… Hats were a necessity when going out and often were adorned with feathers… Corsets were commonplace…”
Surely, we can expect interpretations of the said fashion on the red carpet, a few hours from now.
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