In 1883, Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt attended her sister-in-law’s famed masquerade occasion in a blinding gold-and-silver robe, customized from Paris, dubbed Electrical Gentle, full with hidden batteries that illuminated a torch she held above her head.
Right this moment’s A-listers hope to generate their very own electrical energy at Monday night time’s Met Gala, the costume code for which is “gilded glamour.” But as a substitute of cutting-edge frocks like Mrs. Vanderbilt’s, some insiders worry that attendees will embrace the tackiest points of late-19th-century Manhattan society. Will attire resemble the costumes on the favored HBO sequence “The Gilded Age,” wherein Carrie Coon’s social-climbing Bertha swans round her Fifth Avenue mansion in couture?
Whereas flamboyance has helped make Anna Wintour’s annual Met Gala probably the most anticipated purple carpet of the yr — “It’s a much bigger deal than the Oscars,” mentioned Christina Pacelli, who has dressed celebs reminiscent of Laverne Cox for the large night — some observers say the get-ups have gotten too garish.


“It’s become a dressing up occasion,” designer and frequent gala chair Tom Ford told journalist Amy Odell in her e book “Anna: The Biography,” out Tuesday.
“[It] used to only be very stylish individuals carrying very lovely garments going to an exhibition concerning the 18th century,” Ford continued. “You didn’t must seem like the 18th century, you didn’t have to decorate like a hamburger, you didn’t must arrive in a van the place you had been standing up since you couldn’t sit down since you wore a chandelier.”
Ford might have a barely idealized view of the galas of yore — at the least one particular person confirmed as much as 1981’s ball, themed for the exhibit “The Eighteenth-Century Girl,” dressed in knee breeches! However the garments and themes have gotten kookier within the days since Princess Diana attended in a modern Dior slip costume.

Latest years have seen Rihanna don a pope hat for 2018’s “Heavenly Our bodies,” Jared Leto carrying a duplicate of his personal head for 2019’s “Camp” and Lil Nas X mannequin a horny C-3PO costume for final yr’s “American Independence,” which he shed to disclose a shiny Versace catsuit beneath.
And lest you assume Ford was exaggerating, Katy Perry did put on a chandelier and a hamburger costume — on the identical night time.

‘It’s very Halloween’
“A few of the issues that Kim Kardashian has worn — I imply, it’s very Halloween,” mentioned John Tiffany, a style historian and model marketing consultant who as soon as assisted Eleanor Lambert, the legendary style publicist who dreamed up the Met’s first Costume Institute profit, then known as the Social gathering of the 12 months, in 1948. Again then, Tiffany mentioned, the occasion was a fund-raiser dinner, however within the Nineteen Seventies, when freshly fired Vogue editor Diana Vreeland began manning the Costume Institute, the gala grew to become linked with no matter style exhibit was opening on the museum, “which had been all the time utterly excessive.”
“It’s all the time been a inventive occasion,” mentioned Dennita Sewell, a style professor at Arizona State College who labored on the Costume Institute within the Nineties — when lower-rung staffers might really attend the occasion. “Folks all the time dressed up, however it wasn’t so excessive … Nobody would have accomplished one thing that wasn’t swish and chic.”

“The themes had been famous,” she added, “however it wasn’t like the entire occasion was competing with the exhibition.”
Generally it might really feel that approach.
“It’s gone from an business occasion celebrating the historical past of style to at least one celebrating movie star,” stylist Tracy Taylor advised The Submit. “Designers had been actually the main focus of the galas within the twentieth century and early twenty first century: Alexander McQueen, Halston — Halston would have by no means designed one thing that you simply couldn’t sit in! However recently, the main focus is on themes, and I do really feel prefer it’s encouraging extra excessive interpretations and outfits.”

The invite record has modified to incorporate extra celebrities — notably, in recent times, musicians, who’re used to carrying costumes onstage and sometimes deal with style as efficiency.
“Whenever you’re a musician like Rihanna, it’s not such an enormous stretch to look outlandish,” Taylor mentioned. “They’re anticipated to be a bit extra flamboyant or actually be inventive and present who they’re by how they costume.” And that interprets to the purple carpet.

Gilded controversy
“Gilded glamour” is a costume code that enables for plenty of completely different interpretations — from a corset robe with an enormous bustle and swaths of luxurious taffeta to a slinky gold lamé slip to a sequin frock — and loads of methods to up the ante.
The Gilded Age was one in every of “monumental progress and wealth as a result of industrialization and actual property, and the attire mirrored that opulence,” Taylor mentioned. “It was about these new celebrities and peacocking, and that’s what the Met Gala is about.”
But it might learn as tone deaf. The period, which spanned from 1870 to 1900, was additionally characterised by excessive poverty — with exploited immigrant households residing in crowded, unsanitary tenements on the Decrease East Facet whereas Fifth Avenue’s titans dined on oysters and lobster of their Parisian couture (modeled, perversely, on Seventeenth-century French courtroom style).

“The world is in a state of flux,” mentioned Bronwyn Cosgrave, host of the podcast “Fashion Conversations,” citing the conflict in Ukraine and the uptick in violence within the US. “In New York Metropolis, the place the Met Gala takes place, there’s enormous issues with homelessness, issues with psychological well being … I’m unsure gilded glamour is what we’d like.”
Others argue that it’s precisely what’s wanted proper now.
“When occasions are powerful, individuals flip to fantasy,” Phyllis Magidson, a style curator who labored with the Museum of the Metropolis of New York, advised The Submit.

“All people’s battered, and what higher solution to escape than by interval style?”
Some attendees, too, are embracing the gala’s gloriously gaudy theme.
“I feel that dressing on theme is a part of the enjoyable of it, personally,” Katy Perry’s stylist, Tatiana Waterford, advised The Submit. “Katy all the time attire on theme. However she’s all the time had a particular sense of favor that lends itself to an over-the-top Met Gala look.”
That mentioned, even Perry plans to tone issues down this yr. “She received’t look kooky, however it’s Katy, so there can be no scarcity of drama,” Waterford mentioned. “I want I might reveal extra however you’ll simply have to attend and see!”