The words “Met Gala” don’t exactly sparkle with the same sheen of glamour and mystique that they once did, at least not in 2025. Not long ago, the annual fundraising event for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute implied style and showstopping pageantry. During the two Obama administrations, the event was largely off the radar to most people outside the fashion world. But the proliferation of social media stan culture, which exploded in the mid-2010s, upped the stakes. The gala’s celebrity attendees were watched with intense scrutiny from the moment they left the doors of Manhattan’s swanky Carlyle or Mark hotels until the second they finished ascending the carpeted steps of the Met’s famous steps and disappeared into the museum.
Even the constant chaos of the first Trump administration couldn’t dampen the party. In such unprecedented times — aka, a moment in history when the words “unprecedented times” had never been used more frequently — the Met Gala felt like a welcome distraction. The one-two punch of 2018’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” and 2019’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion” themes was perfect counter-programming to the daily news. The gala put imagination back into the hands of the public, even if it was being handed down from the elite to all of us watching at home, eating takeout while picking at the holes in our socks.
