New York (CNN) — The tables are set, the cameras are waiting and some of today’s most stylish cultural figures are ascending the steps of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashion’s big night out, the Met Gala, is officially underway.
The annual glitzy fundraiser routinely attracts the year’s boldest, bravest and most dazzling looks and this evening’s dress code, “Fashion is Art,” will no doubt fling open the door to all manner of playful and dramatic interpretations from the 400 or so (mostly A-list) attendees.
The theme mirrors the content of an accompanying exhibition titled “Costume Art” at the Met’s Costume Institute, for which the gala is a major source of income. This year, the Met Gala has raised a record $42 million for the museum’s Costume Institute, up from last year’s record of $31 million, the museum announced during a press conference before the event.
Organizers have suggested that guests might “express their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form.” Expect to see bodies as canvases, outfits as sculptures and the canon of art history as inspiration. As guests arrive to climb the front steps, they’ll do so against a verdant backdrop reminiscent of Monet. The museum has created a garden-like setting with romantic hanging florals, barriers of green hedges, pots of lavender and a carpet resembling mossy bricks.
Tonight’s co-chairs include Venus Williams, Nicole Kidman and Beyoncé — who is returning to the event after a decade-long hiatus — along with Vogue’s Anna Wintour, who is credited with transforming the Met Gala into a global spectacle of entertainment and patronage. They’ll be some of the first stars to cross the carpet tonight.
Guests are bound by a strict “no-phone” policy, so these glimpses of guests’ sartorial interpretations may be the only views we get.
But drama could extend beyond the theatrical unveiling of gowns on the red carpet (or in this case, green carpet), too. This year has brought unusual controversy due to the event’s primary sponsors, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos, with protests planned around New York City.
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