Fashion’s biggest night is the latest event to be pushed in
response to the coronavirus pandemic.
NEW YORK, United States — The first Monday in May will be just another spring day,
as far as fashion is concerned.
The Costume
Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on Monday that the annual
Met Gala benefit will not take place on May 4. It did not explain further if
the event will be rescheduled for another date or just cancelled.
The move was
widely expected. With travel bans in effect between Europe and the United
States, and government officials urging citizens to stay at home to help contain
the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, many major fashion events
originally scheduled for March, April and May have been cancelled or
pushed.
The Met Gala, one
of the most important fashion industry events of the entire year, was a
holdout.
“The CDC
advised over the weekend that there should not be any gatherings of 50 people
or more for the next eight weeks,” said a representative for the Costume
Institute. “In deference to this guidance, all programmes and events through
May 15 will be cancelled or postponed.”
On Friday, the
Metropolitan Museum announced it would close to the public for the indefinite
future, and cancelled all events through April 3, leaving the Met Gala as
planned. But on Monday, the museum made the call to push it.
The Costume
Institute gala benefit, which has been hosted by Condé Nast’s Artistic Director Anna Wintour for more than two
decades, is one of only four days the New York museum closes each year. The
glitzy party is known as Oscars for fashion, attended by scores of A-list
celebrities and the designers who dress them.
While the gala
inside the museum is closed to the public or television cameras, the red carpet
arrivals are closely followed, potentially generating thousands of dollars of
earned media value for brands. But for designers, attending the event can be
expensive. In addition to the cost of dressing one or more celebrities in
custom, attention-grabbing looks, brands spend anywhere from $35,000 for a
ticket and $200,000 to $300,000 for a table.
The 2020
exhibition, “About Time: Fashion and Duration” is sponsored by Louis Vuitton and Condé Nast, and is
due to be hosted by co-chairs Nicolas
Ghesquière, the creative director of womenswear at Louis Vuitton, Emma Stone
(who appears in advertisements for Louis Vuitton), Meryl Streep and Lin-Manuel
Miranda, in addition to Wintour.
“Due to the
unavoidable and responsible decision by the Metropolitan Museum to close its
doors, About Time, and the opening night gala, will be postponed to a later
date,” Wintour wrote on Vogue.com, where she also endorsed presidential
candidate Joe Biden.
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