Sound the red-carpet alarm! The 2019 Met Gala—known for its static “first Monday in May” date—will take place in just a few weeks, and anticipation of who’s going to wear what is already mounting.
One of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s biggest fund-raisers, the Met Gala raises money to sustain the museum’s famous Costume Institute, which houses a revered collection of fashion artifacts. The museum comprises design works that date back to the fifteenth century through modern day, and what’s exciting about the event is seeing how notables dress for its theme—which changes annually based on the museum’s rotating fashion exhibit. This year’s theme has been announced as “Camp: Notes On Fashion,” and an official statement about the exhibit reads as follows:
“Through more than 250 objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present, The Costume Institute’s spring 2019 exhibition will explore the origins of camp’s exuberant aesthetic. Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp'” provides the framework for the exhibition, which examines how the elements of irony, humor, parody, pastiche, artifice, theatricality, and exaggeration are expressed in fashion.”
Webster’s defines camp as “a style or mode of personal or creative expression that is absurdly exaggerated and often fuses elements of high and popular culture. Something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate or out-of-date as to be considered amusing.”
This year’s exhibit will be sponsored by Gucci and Conde Nast and hosted by Serena Williams, along with Anna Wintour, Lady Gaga and Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele. Previous themes for the Met Gala include last year’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” (where Cardi B shut down the carpet in regal papal attire) and 2015’s “China: Through the Looking Glass” (a crowning moment for Rihanna and her never-ending Guo Pei cape dress).
The 2019 “Camp” exhibit will be open to the public from May 9 to September 8, 2019.