The Met Gala Just Named Its Very Fashionable Co-Chairs for the 2021 Ball

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute is officially kicking off the second wave of the Roaring '20s by hosting not one, but two Met Gala-related events starting this coming fall. The theme of both events and corresponding exhibits is American fashion and, if all goes according to plan regarding coronavirus guidelines, the first of the celebrations will ring in the Costume Institute's 75th anniversary in September.

Co-chairs for fall's Met Ball on September 13th to kick it all off will be the extremely cool Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman, and Naomi Osaka with honorary chairs Tom Ford, Adam Mosseri, and Anna Wintour, Vogue shared yesterday.

Part One of the 2021 Met Gala is called In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, which, according to a statement from The Met, will "explore a modern vocabulary of American fashion." The show, which will be transparent-walled mise-en-scènes of 20th/21st Century American homes and corresponding fashions within them, will be on display in the Anna Wintour Costume Center from September 18th through September 5th, 2022.

Part Two, In America: An Anthology of Fashion, which chronicles American fashion from the 18th Century through the present, will show in the American Wing period rooms of The Met starting May 2nd, 2022. This part will "explore the development of American fashion by presenting narratives that relate to the complex and layered histories of those spaces."

And yes, with the annual Costume Institute shows comes the world renowned Met Gala, which will be a "more intimate" event, currently scheduled for September 13th, 2021. And by the time May 2nd, 2022, rolls around, the Institute will be able to go back to regular programming and host the hugely anticipated, couture-heavy Met Gala we've been missing since 2019.

"Over the past year, because of the pandemic, the connections to our homes have become more emotional, as have those to our clothes. For American fashion, this has meant an increased emphasis on sentiment over practicality," Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu curator in charge of the Costume Institute, said in the Met press release. "Responding to this shift, Part One of the exhibition will establish a modern vocabulary of American fashion based on the expressive qualities of clothing as well as deeper associations with issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Part Two will further investigate the evolving language of American fashion through a series of collaborations with American film directors who will visualize the unfinished stories inherent in The Met's period rooms."

Of course, details of the upcoming galas will remain in flux, as the coronavirus pandemic is still very much in play despite nationwide vaccine rollouts. The Costume Institute is working with the state of New York to ensure that participants will be as safe as possible while attending the parties. But, if things continue to improve, we're looking at a fun and fashion-filled fall and spring ahead of us (thank goodness).