It’s Met Gala Monday–fashion’s biggest night! The star-studded party, which raises money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, attracts a-list celebs decked out in over-the-top looks.
This year’s exhibit is an homage to the art of “Camp,” but what does the term even mean? In case you don’t have time to read the 1964 essay that inspired this year’s theme (Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag)–we’ve spared you the 58 bullet point explanation with our own truncated version. Camp is a sensibility or aesthetic that celebrates humor, costume, exaggeration, irony, high glamour and what we’d unwittingly call “being extra.”
Birthed in the underground, you can’t talk about camp without celebrating the icons who brought it to the mainstream. Seen in classic films like 1990’s Paris is Burning, it’s an aesthetic that’s better understood visually than verbally. So, get into these rule-breaking icons that embodied the art of excess long before the Met Gala made it a thing.
RUPAUL
JOSEPHINE BAKER
DIANA ROSS
PRINCE
GRACE JONES
BEYONCE
ANDRE 3000
BILLY PORTER
PARIS IS BURNING CAST
DONNA SUMMER
LITTLE RICHARD
LIL KIM
RIHANNA
NICKI MINAJ
LABELLE
