A Less Outrageous and Costume-y Met Gala? Why This Year’s Event May Be Different
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Anyone who knew Karl Lagerfeld is surely smiling while thinking about how the popular and revered late designer might react to the Costume Institute exhibition Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, which opens May 5 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. After all, how does one produce a museum show around a man who believed that accolades and the notion of “fashion as art” always took a backseat to the work itself?
“Karl never regarded himself as an artist. He thought that was pretentious, he always saw himself as a designer for hire,” Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue and the organizer of the Met Gala since 1995, tells THR. “His relentless drive to move forward also made him prolific; he just had such a fast-moving mind.” The exhibition comprises Lagerfeld’s 64-year career, showcasing 150-plus Lagerfeld designs for Chanel, Fendi, Chloé and his own eponymous label, as well as his earlier work for Balmain and Patou.
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The Met Gala will likewise celebrate Lagerfeld, who died in 2019. The May 1 event is co-chaired by Wintour, Michaela Coel, Dua Lipa, Roger Federer and Penélope Cruz and both E! News and Vogue will have livestreams of the red carpet.
Met Gala guests often have embraced outrageous custom looks inspired by exhibition themes, like 2019’s Camp: Notes on Fashion. But affection for Lagerfeld the man and a love of his work may result in a carpet tilted more toward elegance than costume. With this year’s dress code reading simply, “In honor of Karl,” exhibition curator Andrew Bolton says he hopes gala guests will feel that “it’s in the spirit of Karl, and hopefully everyone will come out in vintage Chanel, vintage Fendi, vintage Chloé.”
That idea indeed has resulted in an uptick of inquiries to top vintage retailers. “We always get calls in advance of the Met Gala, but there are definitely more this year,” says Seth Weisser, CEO of What Goes Around Comes Around. Through the afternoon of Met Gala day, the luxury vintage retailer is hosting a styling suite in its West Broadway location to showcase its many Chanel items, including pieces from celebrated 1990s collections that also intersected with the height of the supermodel era.
On Friday, April 28, What Goes Around Comes Around also debuted the WGACA Atelier, a 5,000-square-foot retail space located at 113 Wooster St., which Weisser says will feature an ongoing schedule of curated collections available for purchase. First up: a Karl Lagerfeld retrospective featuring vintage ready-to-wear and accessories that span Lagerfeld’s career. “When we looked at our calendar and we knew the Met Gala theme, starting with Lagerfeld only made sense, given our business and how well we do with his legacy, especially in Chanel and Fendi,” Weisser says. “It was a perfect synergy to do our own shoppable vision. We knew we wanted to bring a lot of those collectible pieces, some available to purchase, but also featuring some pieces that won’t be for sale, as well as using some 3D imaging technology, all to create a really immersive presentation.”
Weisser also enlisted Helena Christensen to both appear in the Atelier’s ad campaign, wearing and carrying a variety of vintage Chanel pieces, and to host the April 28 launch party at the Wooster Street location. Meanwhile, for Lagerfeld fans who can’t get to New York City, Weisser notes that several pieces have been included both on the retailer’s website and in an exclusive curation on Amazon’s Luxury Stores channel.
Cameron Silver, founder of Los Angeles-based Decades, says the enduring popularity of almost anything designed by Lagerfeld means that some ensembles planned for Monday’s Met Gala may already have been residing in attendees’ closets. “The interest in Karl Lagerfeld-era Chanel, Fendi and Chloé had increased immediately after the designer passed,” he says. “Furthermore, Chanel has perennially been very desirable since our doors opened in 1997. I honestly don’t think there is a seismic increase, since Lagerfeld designs are always coveted. So the desire is just enhanced, but people have been collecting his work intensely for many years. I hope someone shows up in a Chloé shower dress from 1983.”
Rita Watnick, owner of Beverly Hills vintage boutique Lily et Cie, also notes that she’s received calls — but to access any of the half-million vintage pieces in her collection, clients must make an in-person appointment. “Recently I posted [on Instagram] two Chanel looks I thought were very Met Gala-friendly, but for the important pieces, we simply don’t put them out into the social media world,” Watnick explains. “When a client is buying a really expensive, unbelievable piece, we don’t think the whole world should see it before they wear it.”
Lagerfeld was known to visit Watnick, who first met the designer in 1989, at Lily et Cie anytime he was in L.A. “He was very generous and sent everyone here,” Watnick says. “He sent Naomi Campbell, he sent Kate Moss, he sent everybody. A lot of Lily et Cie’s success has to do with Karl.”
So how does Watnick feel about the upcoming exhibition? “I wish it had happened while he was still alive,” she says. “Karl was so prolific, it was crazy, and he was infinitely inquisitive, and that always went into his work, so I hope all of that is reflected in the exhibition.”
Weisser agrees. “Karl was a designer, but he was also a master creator,” he says. “You saw it in his designs, but also in his sketches and his love of photography. There’s really no designer who covered as many artistic roles as he did, so this will be a proper moment to respect that.”
A version of this story first appeared in the April 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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