New details about the 2023 Met Gala have finally been revealed. Organizers of the annual benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute—or as some like to call it, "fashion's biggest night out,"—announced its theme on Friday morning at a press conference during Paris Fashion Week.
Here's everything we know about next year's fashion extravaganza so far.
What is the 2023 Met Gala theme?
Karl Lagerfeld, the legendary German fashion designer who passed away in February 2019 at age 85, will be honored at the 2023 Met Gala. The exhibit, which serves as the inspiration for the gala, is officially titled "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty" and will showcase the late creative visionary's greatest works and designs from across his six-decade career. Outfits featured will include pieces he made while working for brands like Chanel, Fendi, Balmain, Patou, Chloé, and his own eponymous label. The showcase is expected to run from May 5 through July 16 next year.
More From Town & Country“He would sketch everything. He would always say that he could draw before he could talk or walk. In many ways it was his primary form of communication, whether he was delivering them by fax machine or iPhone," Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s Wendy Yu Curator in Charge, told Vogue after the announcement. "So at its heart the exhibition will look at the evolution of Karl’s two dimensional drawings into three dimensional garments. And what’s fascinating to have discovered: I always thought that his drawings were very spontaneous and almost impressionistic. But they were in truth extremely precise, almost mathematical. We couldn’t see it because we are not trained, but his premiers knew down to the millimeter what each line meant. It was almost a secret code, a language shared between him and those premiers, that only they could fully decipher.”
When is the 2023 Met Gala?
Historically, the Met Gala is always held on the first Monday in May. So that means, the event is expected to be held on May 1.
Who is hosting the 2023 Met Gala?
Next year's hosts have still not been announced, but expect a quartet of big-name talent. The co-chairs for last year's event included Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Stick with T&C as more information about next year's Met Gala comes in.
Sophie Dweck is the associate shopping editor for Town & Country, where she covers beauty, fashion, home and décor, and more.
The Met Gala is the biggest night in fashion and in previous years it has brought the likes of Timothée Chalamet, Ryan Reynolds, Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A grandiose event that raises funds for the museum's Costume Institute, the theme of the gala riffs on the exhibition, which opens its doors to the public the following day.
Today, Pharrell, Anna Wintour and the Costume Institute, which is headed up by Andrew Bolton [the art curator husband of Thom Browne], announced that the 2023 exhibition will be titled “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty”. From 1954 until his death in 2019, the designer was recognised as one of the most influential in the world, and worked at Balmain, Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel and his own eponymous brand across the years.
“Karl never tired of telling me that fashion did not belong in a museum," Andrew Bolton told Vogue of the decision to make Lagerfeld the subject of the exhibition. "When we worked on the Chanel show together he was incredibly generous in what he lent, but he was completely disinterested in the exhibition itself! He would say ‘fashion is not art—fashion belongs on the street, on women’s bodies, on men's bodies.
“The one thing I knew for certain is that we could not do a traditional retrospective," Bolton said. "For one thing, I think Karl would have hated that. Even though one of his facets was that he was a historicist, and he would revisit themes in his work, he was always looking to the future in his own work—he hated looking back at the past. It was something he had a very conflicted relationship with.”
And while the dress code for the Met Gala hasn't yet been formally announced, you can bet that it will be centred around the exhibition. So what can you expect the guests to wear? Well, Kris Jenner, a fan of Lagerfeld's work, will likely go digging through her own extensive Chanel archive, while you can expect long-time collaborator Pharrell to sport yet another fit from the late designer's many collections. Meanwhile, you can hope for a return from Rihanna, with fingers crossed for some vintage Lagerfeld era Balmain. Harry Styles in one of Lagerfeld's Fendi gowns? We'd love to see it.