The Met Gala Has Been Postponed
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Add the Met Gala to the long list of events being postponed amid coronavirus fears.
Rumors have swirled for weeks as the deadly virus continues to spread throughout the U.S., but it was not until Monday afternoon that Vogue U.S. editor in chief Anna Wintour confirmed that the celebrity-filled gala would not be happening as planned on May 4.
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“One day that will not arrive on schedule will be the opening of the Costume Institute’s exhibition, ‘About Time.’ Due to the unavoidable and responsible decision by the Metropolitan Museum to close its doors, ‘About Time,’ and the opening night gala, will be postponed to a later date,” she wrote in a piece penned for Vogue.com just days after the museum shuttered for an undetermined amount of time.
This year’s exhibition and gala were set to be an even glitzier than usual affair as 2020 marks the museum’s 150th anniversary. Louis Vuitton was the main sponsor of the exhibition, whose theme was “About Time: Fashion and Duration,” while its women’s wear designer, Nicolas Ghesquière, was due to co-chair the gala alongside Meryl Street, Emma Stone, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Wintour. At a press conference at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris last month, Metropolitan Museum director Max Hollein said that the exhibition would feature 120 outfits dating from 1870, the year the museum was founded, to the present.
Wintour did not reveal when the “later date” would be, but with so many events being postponed until fall, the calendar for the second half is filling up fast. It’s also going to be tough for the editor in chief and Condé Nast artistic director to wrangle the crowd of designers, musicians and other celebrities she usually does given the crowded fall fashion season that stretches until early October, and then the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods.
In the same Vogue article, she savaged President Trump’s response to the COVID-19 crisis and endorsed Joe Biden for president after his “decisive victories on Super Tuesday.”
“Like everyone else, I have been experiencing this COVID-19 crisis as a series of hurtling developments, where one never knows quite what each new day will bring,” she said. “Through it all one fact, however, remains stubbornly unchanged: President Trump. I, like so many of us, have been appalled by how he has responded to the pandemic — the optimistic and fact-free assurances that all will be fine, the chaotic implementation of travel bans and claims about a ‘foreign virus,’ the narcissistic ease with which he has passed blame to others, his dishonesty with the American people, and worst of all, his shocking lack of empathy and compassion for those who are suffering and fearful.”
As for Biden, Wintour noted that he “is unmistakably a man of character and has so many qualities that we are in desperately short supply of in Washington right now: decency, honor, compassion, trustworthiness and, best of all, experience. I know that we will get through COVID-19, but on the other side more challenges await — not the least of which is grappling with our ongoing climate crisis.” She also praised his decision to commit to choosing a woman vice president and added that these weeks have been a reminder that “America must choose a new president.”
The endorsement fits in with Wintour’s past, given she raised substantial sums for the campaigns of former President Barack Obama. It is surprising, given her leadership of Vogue — and that one would have assumed she would have endorsed a female candidate by and would have helped raise funds for one of them.
News that the Met Gala would be postponed comes as the Trump administration issued national guidance to limit gatherings to 10 people for the next 15 days.
For more, see:
Met’s Costume Institute Outlines ‘About Time’ Fashion Exhibition
Andrew Bolton: 2020 Show to Highlight Met’s Permanent Collection
Met Gala 2019: The Good, the Bad and the Camp
WATCH: The Business of Street Style
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