Why Anna Wintour says this year's Met Gala theme 'unleashed confusion'

May has arrived and spring is in full bloom, which means it is almost time for fashion’s biggest night of the year: The 2024 Met Gala, also known as the Costume Institute Benefit.

Every year, A-list celebrities dress to the nines and make their way to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the exclusive event, which was first organized by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert in 1948, according to Vogue, as a midnight supper party.

Nearly 80 years later, the charity benefit, which supports the art museum's Costume Institute, has turned into a major spectacle where photographers and journalists line the steps of the Met hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars who walk the red carpet.

There will be plenty of famous faces to see. According to Vogue around 450 stars land an invite to the annual event.

Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue, has become synonymous with the Met Gala since she started overseeing the event in 1995.

Wintour, who is also a Met trustee, appeared on TODAY May 6, ahead of the evening's festivities, and spoke to Jenna Bush Hager about prepping for the gala.

"It’s relatively quiet," she shared. "Everything is in the details. We plan these exhibitions in the evening so far in advance that if we’re not relatively calm in this point, we’re in big, big trouble."

She revealed that teams start working on each gala two or three years in advance.

Wintour joins a group of celebs every year who serve as co-chairs and help plan the gala.

So who will co-host the exhibition this year and what is the theme? Find out everything you need to know about the 2024 Met Gala below.

When is the 2024 Met Gala?

The 2024 Met Gala will kick off on Monday, May 6, at the historic Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.

According to Vogue, the Met Gala has been held the first Monday in May ever since Wintour took over as co-chair in 1995.

The tradition has continued since then with the exception of the 2021 Met Gala, which was postponed until September of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to watch the 2024 Met Gala

Live coverage of the 2024 Met Gala arrivals will begin on Vogue.com starting at 6 p.m. ET. The livestream will also appear on the magazine’s digital platforms, TikTok and YouTube.

La La Anthony, Ashley Graham and “Wednesday” star Gwendoline Christie will host the livestream. Internet personality Emma Chamberlain will be the magazine’s special correspondent on the red carpet.

Who are the 2024 Met Gala co-hosts?

In addition to Wintour, a few celebrities are asked every year to co-host the event. For the 2024 Met Gala, Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth will be the co-chairs along with two honorary chairs: Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson and TikTok CEO Shou Chew.

On TODAY, Wintour complimented each co-chair. She mentioned that this year's Met Gala will mark Lopez's 14th visit to the Costume Institute opening. The editor also gushed about Bad Bunny after seeing him perform recently in Brooklyn.

"And then Zendaya, you know, a couple of years when she couldn’t come, I felt gloom hung over the internet. Like, you know, a cloud of sad emojis because everyone always looks forward to what she’s gonna wear. And I know she will not disappoint," Wintour said.

For the Marvel star, she playfully added, "Who would be a better prince than Chris Hemsworth to wake up the sleeping beauties? And I can only talk for the corridors of Vogue, but the level of excitement when his name was mentioned rose several degrees. And I dare to guess that it might be the same here at the Met, too."

Last year, Michaela Coel, Penélope Cruz, Roger Federer and Dua Lipa were co-hosts.

Who is on the guest list for the 2024 Met Gala?

Invitations to the Met Gala are usually hidden from the general public. The guest list isn’t officially confirmed until the celebrities arrive on the red carpet.

All the actors, musicians, athletes and models who attend the Met Gala are selected months in advance.

“We start with a seating document when the names come together in December,” Eaddy Kiernan, who organizes the seating chart, told Vogue.

“The actual seating chart doesn’t come together until about a month before the event, when we get a sense for the layout of the room, and the flow of the evening,” Kiernan revealed.

Kiernan said her team meticulously maps out which celebrities will be at the same table.

“We really try to think very carefully about who’s sitting next to each other. Our ideal pairing would maybe be two people who we think will just get on like a house on fire, but who may not even realize that they have a lot in common. So with each person, we really do take time to think, ‘What will they talk about?’” she explained.

Although we won’t know who received an invitation until May 6, there are a few stars who make dramatic entrances almost every year. Rihanna, Blake Lively, and Jared Leto are some of the celebrities who always deliver a unique interpretation of the theme. Viewers should also expect to see the Kardashian-Jenner family posing for photos — at least one family member has attended the Met Gala since 2013.

What are the rules of the Met Gala?

Wintour shared a few quirks with TODAY.

Cell phones are banned from the event, for one.

“It’s often wonderful to hear after dinner, people say, ‘Oh, we had the most wonderful conversations.’ And so that’s the idea — that life can exist without a picture on your cell phone,” she explained.

So are chives, onions and garlic, Wintour confirmed to TODAY. "Those are three things I'm not particularly fond of. And so yes. That's true," she said.

What is the dress code for the 2024 Met Gala?

The dress code of each Met Gala is paired to the spring exhibition at the Met's Costume Institute.

Wintour said this year's exhibition broke her "cardinal rule."

"We came up with the title 'Sleeping Beauties.' It's wonderful, it's poetic, its romantic, but actually it could be many, many things," she said.

That, paired with the "Garden of Time" dress code, she said, may have caused mixed signals.

"I fear we have unleashed a lot of confusion out there for which I deeply apologize," she said.

What is the exhibition?

The new exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion," features about 250 pieces from the Costume Institute's archives.

“Sleeping Beauties” is not a reference to the classic fairytale, “but rather the celebration of clothing and fashion so fragile that it can’t ever be worn again — and are thus sleeping beauties in the scrupulous archives of the Costume Institute,” Vogue explained.

During Wintour's appearance on TODAY, she spoke more about the meaning behind "Sleeping Beauties."

"The idea of 'Sleeping Beauties' is taking these masterpieces from different periods. And because so many of them are very fragile, and have to be laid flat, they can’t even be displayed on a mannequin or in any other way. They are laid flat, behind glass wall and around them are the inspirations that are muses, as (curator Andrew Bolton) calls them," she said.

When speaking about the exhibition to TODAY, Bolton said, "The idea is to try and reawaken garments in our collection through the senses. So, you’re gonna be able to smell a garment, you’ll hear it. You can’t wear it, but you can see something being in movement."

He later explained, "Nature’s the throughline throughout the exhibition."

What is the dress code?

The paired dress code is “The Garden of Time,” inspired by the 1962 short story of the same name written by J. G. Ballard, Vogue reported.

Ballard wrote about two married aristocrats who are under attack. The couple lives in a castle with a garden that contains magical flowers. When the flowers are removed from the stem, the garden loses time and motion.

Guests might choose to embrace the floral aspect or focus on the importance of time and fragility.

Wintour predicted there would be plenty of flowers on the red carpet and hinted that her gown might have floral elements.

What was the theme last year and who attended?

In 2023, the Met Gala paid tribute to iconic German designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 at 85, with the theme of “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty.”

Multiple celebrities honored Largerfeld with their looks, like Anne Hathaway, Lily Collins, Keke Palmer, Brian Tyree Henry, Jessica Chastain,  Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky.

As Jenna mentioned on TODAY, the 2023 Met Gala raised $22 million.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com