Written by Jacques Palumbo, CNN
The Met Gala, known as the biggest night of fashion, returns to its typical period – the first Monday in May – after two years of interruption due to the pandemic. The event, which takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, coincides with the opening of the second part of the exhibition “In America: An Anthology of Fashion”, organized by the Museum’s Costume Institute. Guests are asked to dress in “Glitter and White Tie”, referring to the lavish gilded era, a period of three decades in the late 19th century that transformed American infrastructure and public life.
But the documentation of the exciting gala has changed in recent years, as photographers have been largely confined to capturing high-profile entrances to attendees; and the images that come from the strictly controlled press area are polished and repetitive. To see how celebrities relax (like Bella Hadid and Mark Jacobs, who gather in the bathroom for smoking breaks, for example), you should refer to the photos after the party or their Instagram shows.
The images from the past gala are enticing due to the factor of nostalgia and retro style, but also reveal a calmer atmosphere, which is not limited to the arrival of the red carpet.
Photographer Rose Hartmann, who photographed the gala for decades until the early 2000s, recalled on the phone a time when there was more freedom to move and communicate with those present. In 1986, she filmed actress Linda Carter and secular figure Blaine Trump laughing.
Hartmann sensed the close friendship between Linda Carter and Blaine Trump as they laughed, but also noted how glamorous they looked as they did so. Credit: Rose Hartman / Getty Images
“They just talked so happily to each other instead of posing,” Hartman told CNN in 2020. “I always try, whenever possible, to photograph people who are engaged to each other.”
Photographer Ron Galela, who has been filming the gala since 1967, had a system for capturing the best shots, from arrivals for a coat inspection to the museum floor and dinner. “It was easy to shoot inside,” he wrote in an email in 2020. A New York Press map was all you needed to get in. (When press releases eventually became limited, there were years, he sneaked in illegally through the staff entrance.)
Cher smoked a cigarette during the 1974 Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design Show. Credit: Ron Galela / Getty Images via Getty
In the decades since the event’s first iteration in 1948, the gala concert has gone from a chic celebration off-site celebrations such as the Manhattan Rainbow Room to a fashion show. Secular figures and artists have given way to the spotlight of celebrities on the A-list, who make headlines about how they choose to interpret or ignore the evening’s theme.
The theme is based on a new exhibition by the Costume Institute, such as this year’s two-part show in honor of American designers. Other topics include “Camp: Notes on Fashion” from 2019 and “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” from 2018.
The change in the guest list and the atmosphere is largely due to the change of generations in the vision. In the 1970s, Vogue editor Diana Vreeland positioned the gala as the opening of the Institute’s major exhibitions and invited crème de la crème to the fashion world and New York society, but her successor Anna Wintour preferred high-profile musicians, actors and entertainment figures. using $ 30,000 tickets for the event to raise millions of dollars each year.
In 1999, Wintour’s first year as chairman of the event, Hartmann took a picture of Vogue’s editor-in-chief entering with former editor-in-chief Andre Leon Tally, who died earlier this year. Their image is joyful, as both editors shine in costumes and are caught on the move.
“I love the fact that they walk, not stand,” Hartman said. “I love the gesture of their movement.”
Galela filmed this bright moment for Iman, Paloma Picasso and Rafael Lopez Sanchez at the 1983 Met Gala, which honored the work of Yves Saint Laurent. Credit: Ron Galela / Getty Images
Galela’s huge archive of photos from the Met Gala, which he published in a book in 2019, also shows nice gestures between celebrities when they are not expecting a flash on camera. In 1983, he filmed supermodel Iman and designer Paloma Picasso laughing as Picasso’s husband bent low to hug the statuette Iman over her waist. In 1995, he caught Christy Turlington seemingly teasing Kate Moss by sticking her finger in dangerously low-cut back of Moss’s white dress.
Supermodels Kate Moss and Christy Turlington joked at the Met Gala in 1995. Credit: Ron Galela / Getty Images
These days, the gala can be taken seriously with its attentive image, but Galela believes it is a universal feeling to want to see the entertainment and fashion elite disappoint their guards. “We see them in movies, we see them as superstars. But I want to see them as people,” he told Forbes. “How beautiful they are when they’re not playing?”
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