Every year, event planner Raul Ávila is given a daunting task: to transform the Metropolitan Museum of Art into an otherworldly spectacle for the annual Met Gala. For 2019’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” he created a 25-foot tall, flamboyant flamingo centerpiece comprised of 30,000 flowers. In 2018, he erected a rose recreation of a papal crown for “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” And those are just examples of floral formations: In 2007, for “Poiret: King of Fashion,” he filled a gilded birdcage with live peacocks. Minor chaos ensued when one escaped. “Everyone at the museum was chasing after her to get her back into the cage,” he recalled.
Each event brings an adventure: in 2013, Avila and his team flew in a chandelier from London and rigged it with razor blades for that year’s punk-themed bash, and “Heavenly Bodies” saw the Met’s grand staircase alight with thousands of candles. Then there are the table settings: 2019, for example, saw tablescapes with bamboo flatware, feather lampshades, floral plates, and shocking pink tablecloths.
2023’s soirée, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” honored the Chanel creative director with its decor. The Temple of Dendur boasted a set that resembled Lagerfeld’s home library, while the tablescapes took aesthetic cues for the famous wedding reception he threw for Paloma Picasso.
This year’s event—“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”—and its sure-to-be fantastical decor will take place on May 6. So until then, take a spin through the Met Gala interiors throughout the years, from 2005’s Chanel-themed soiree to the most recent affair in 2023.
Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty
In America: An Anthology of Fashion and A Lexicon of Fashion
Camp: Notes on Fashion
Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
Photographed by Corey Tenold
Rei Kawakuno /Comme des Garçons: Art of The In-Between
Manus X Machina: Fashion In An Age of Technology
China: Through The Looking Glass
Charles James: Beyond Fashion
Punk: Chaos to Couture
Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
American Woman: Fashioning A National Identity
The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy
Poiret: King of Fashion
Anglomania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion
Chanel
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