No one understands what the new Met Gala theme means

Yesterday the new Met Gala theme was announced: Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. The event will take plance on May 6th 2024. The theme of both the gala and the exhibition is about vintage gowns preserved at the Met that can no longer be worn and whose beauty can be experienced through cutting-edge technologies that enable their study and preservation-namely, the "sleeping beauties" of the title. The 250 vintage dresses on display (ranging from Worth's 19th-century works to modern Haute Couture) will be analyzed from the perspective of their deterioration, but also brought to life through technology, and their relationship with the natural world will also be explored through a division of "Earth," "Sea" and "Sky" sections. And while the idea of the exhibition is indeed quite interesting, with its proposal to give us an insight into the history of Couture both from the point of view of its fragility and its relationship with new technologies, the actual theme that guests will have to follow is more confusing than ever. Will it be necessary to wear archival clothes? Or sustainable clothes? Will there be room for dialogue between fashion and technology, or will we see clothes that replicate natural elements? No one seems able to figure it out.

One might also add, then, that historically, Met Gala guests tend to disregard the theme, and thus the expectation, rather than positive or negative, becomes even more smoky and confusing. We are almost certain that a good deal of guests will hastily take the "sleeping beauty" label and go back to Disney, the most intuitive solution. Another fear is to see evening gowns that are very normal but made from the sustainable-technological material of the day and will therefore need some boring explaining. Be that as it may, if last year's theme was super easy, this year there already seems to be good reason to ignore it. If nothing else, the theme chosen is as abstruse as it is profoundly appropriate to the historical moment in which fashion finds itself, with its intersection of reasoning about the archive, sustainability, and artificial intelligences.

Bookmakers are betting that there will be an abundance of McQueen and Galliano's Dior looks, although as one Twitter user pointed out the dress that most represents the theme seen this year is the final look from Undercover's SS24 show, the one with the butterflies flying in the skirt and for which Jun Takahashi had to apologize (which proves more about his nobility of character than an actual mistake on his part). Be that as it may, let's hope that next year's show concept will at the very least be a little clearer-no one likes to be invited to a masquerade ball without being able to understand the dress code.