The 70th Met Gala, the elite A-list collision of art, fashion, sex and celebrity, takes place in New York City on Monday night.
The Met Gala- more commonly known as the Met Ball and formerly styled the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala- takes itself very seriously indeed. You would expect nothing less from an extravaganza presided over by chic control freak Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.
This year the weighty theme is “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” which sounds more Stanley Kubrick than Michael Kors. During the run-up to the Met Ball, Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute of the Met, was the subject of an extensive interview in Vogue which generated profound psychological insights such as “When Bolton was a child and had a fever, his nightmares were always about texture: rough, smooth.”
At Heat Street, we can’t help noticing that while the Met Ball still commands unprecedented social force, things haven’t been running all that smoothly recently. We’re not bitter because we weren’t invited; it’s just that the gala has become a laughing stock in recent times.
Here are five reasons why the Met Ball has lost its luster:
PUNK FLUNK:
Three years ago the Met Ball sought a bohemian creative vibe to go with the Costume Institute’s 2013 exhibit: “Punk: From Chaos to Couture.” While some celebs- Cara Delevingne and Sienna Miller- kept it classy, other boldface names such as Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian drew widespread ridicule for their over-the-top outfits. Most risible of all was Madonna who sported ripped fishnet stockings, a tartan studded jacket, leather gloves and no pants meant Her Madgesty looked less the “Queen of Pop” and more the “Peasant of Punk.”
MORE: WHO SAID IT: DONALD TRUMP OR KIM KARDASHIAN?
FLOP FILM:
The Met Ball was immortalized in “The First Monday in May” , a recent documentary produced by Vogue publisher Condé Nast and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Andrew Rossi. But unlike 2009 Vogue movie “The September Issue” which made $6.3 million, a stellar sum for a doc, “The First Monday in May” has failed to capture imaginations, taking barely more than $300,000 in its few weeks of release despite a high-profile launch at the Tribeca Film Festival. Adding to the embarrassment factor, Wintour said in the film of a prospective unnamed Met Ball invitee “Can he not be on his cellphone the entire time, then?” The celebrity’s name was blurred out in the film but the New York Post’s Page Six reported it was Ricky Van Veen, techie husband of “Girls” actress Allison Williams.
WHITE TIE AND FAIL:
After the punk fashion debacle of 2013, the Met sought to keep it classy the next year by shifting sartorial gears to a vintage dress code of “White Tie and Decorations” in honor of Charles James, the English-born couturier whose designs formed the subject of the 2014 Met costume exhibit. Some celebs never got the memo. Lupita Nyongo’s beaded and feathered Prada dress brought to mind ‘seaweed chic’ while Shailene Woodley’s Rodarte gown looked like she had thrown up on some expensive window curtains.
MORE: WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT’S DINNER SO WHITE HOUSE
MET BORE:
With a seemingly endless red carpet and proceedings now choreographed to such an exhaustive degree, is the Met Ball as fun as it was? Some don’t think so including Gwyneth Paltrow who went public in 2013 dissing the event and “consciously uncoupling from the event. “It sucked,” she told Australian radio station KIIS 106.5. “It seems like it’s the best thing in the world, you always think, ‘Oh my god, it’s gonna be so glamorous and amazing and you’re going to see all these people’ and then you get there and it’s so hot and it’s so crowded and everyone’s pushing you.”
CHINA CRISIS:
Last year reached a new style low with many celebrities using the Met costume exhibit China: Through the Looking Glass” as an excuse to go mental Oriental. Sarah Jessica Parker’s flaming red Philip Treacy headpiece applied the wrong definition to the phrase “on fire” while Beyoncé’s sister Solange Knowles seemingly wore her aquatic outfit back to front. Still it was an improvement on the previous year’s Met Ball experience for Solange when she was caught on camera in an elevator at the Standard Hotel attacking her brother-in-law Jay Z at the Met Gala after-party because he wanted to party with Rihanna against the wishes of Beyoncé.
Solange is the Met Ball guest we deserve pic.twitter.com/dZOsmRr4CH
— H.G. Watson (@HG_Watson) May 5, 2015
