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Met Gala 2020: What is the theme, when is it and who are the co-chairs?

The 2019 Met Gala was co-chaired by Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, Alessandro Michelle and Serena Williams

Sabrina Barr
Thursday 07 November 2019 17:47 GMT
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Met Gala: Lady Gaga wows red carpet with four looks

Widely regarded as one of the most significant sartorial fixtures of the year, the annual Met Gala never fails to spark excitement among fashion aficionados.

From the imaginative theme and carefully-curated exhibition to the appearance of some of the world's most famous faces, the event always delivers a spectacle.

Six months prior to the gala, which raises money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York, its theme and co-chairs have been announced.

The 2020 Met Gala will mark the 150th anniversary of the museum, which first opened its doors on 13 April 1870.

Last year, singer Lady Gaga, tennis player Serena Williams, musician Harry Styles and Gucci creative director Alessandro Michelle served as co-chairs of the event alongside Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine.

Here is everything you need to know about the 2020 Met Gala:

When is it?

The Met Gala takes place on an annual basis on the first Monday of May.

Therefore, next year's event will be held on Monday 4 May.

The fact that the Met Gala occurs on the first Monday in May is one all followers of fashion will be aware of.

However, some may not know this tradition can only be traced back 15 years.

From 2001 until 2004, the glitzy gala was held in late April, having previously taken place in late November or early December.

The changing of the event's date from winter to spring occurred following the death of the Costume Institute's chief curator, Richard Martin, in November 2019, as it was allegedly "impossible" to have the exhibition ready in time that year.

What is the theme?

The theme for the 2020 Met Gala and the Costume Institute's accompanying spring exhibition is "About Time: Fashion and Duration".

The retrospective, which will be on display from 7 May 2020 until 7 September 2020, will take a look back at over a century and a half of fashion, looking at garments from 1870 up until the present day.

'Surreal', David Bailey, 1980

"The exhibition will explore how clothes generate temporal associations that conflate the past, present and future," the Metropolitan Museum of Art states in a press release.

Max Hollein, director of the Met, said the exhibition will "consider the ephemeral nature of fashion, employing flashbacks and fast-fowards to reveal how it can be both linear and cyclical".

Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Costume Institute, added that the display will "use the concept of duration to analyse the temporal twists and turns of fashion history".

The exhibition will feature around 160 pieces of women's clothing, the majority of which will come from the Costume Institute's own collection.

As is custom, the title of the exhibition will inspire the ensembles worn by the celebrities who are invited to attend the star-studded Met Gala prior to the opening of the exhibition.

The theme for the 2019 Met Gala was "Camp: Notes on Fashion", inspired by Susan Sontag's 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'".

For the event, Lady Gaga donned a dazzling four-piece layered outfit designed by Brandon Maxwell, Zendaya transformed into a princess in a Cinderella-inspired ballgown and Harry Styles opted for a Gucci ensemble, which featured a pair of torso-high trousers and a black, sheer, ruffled top.

The Met Gala has, on occasion, sparked controversy with its chosen theme.

The event's 2018 theme, which was "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination", was lambasted by critics as "blasphemous".

Click through the gallery above to see all the best looks from the pink carpet in 2019.

Who are the co-chairs?

As chair of the Met Gala, every year Wintour is joined by a select group of co-chairs for the event.

Previous co-chairs have included the likes of Serena Williams, Rihanna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Roberts and Idris Elba.

Wintour's co-chairs for the 2020 "About Time: Fashion and Duration" Met Gala are La Land star Emma Stone, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep and Nicolas Ghesquière, creative director of Louis Vuitton.

Manuel, who is currently starring in the BBC series His Dark Materials, joked on Twitter that he would like to dress as "zombie Hamilton".

Ghesquière expressed his excitement over co-chairing the Met Gala on Instagram, saying he felt "honoured".

For all the latest news on the Met Gala, click here.

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