The 2022 Met Gala has faced criticism after choosing “Gilded Glamour” as the event’s theme, amidst some of the socio-economic issues that America has currently been facing.
The event took place on Monday 2 May in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, in honour of the Costume Institute’s part two of its American fashion exhibit. This year’s theme, “In America: An Anthology of Fashion,” was dedicated to fashion during the eighteenth century and was a continuation of the 2021 Met Gala theme, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.”
Ahead of the gala, run by Anna Wintour, Vogue announced that the dress code for the occasion was gilded glamour, white-code. This dress code had asked attendees to find their outfit inspirations by looking at the Gilded Age, a period from about 1870 to 1890 characterised by prosperity and industrialisation.
From Thomas Edison’s light bulb in 1882 to Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876, America experienced some major changes during the Gilded Age.
According to Vogue, innovations during that time period also created new forms of fashions, including women’s dresses with “a combination of many textiles, like satin, silk, velvet, and fringe, all adorned with over-the-top textures like lace, bows, frills, and ruffles”.
However, organisers of the 2020 Met Gala theme have been criticised on social media, as they’re being called out for being insensitive towards American society today.
On Twitter, many people have claimed that the theme is “out of touch” with reality, as America is still in the midst of a pandemic, facing high inflation rates, and having issues with racial and financial inequality.
“Am I the only one who thinks this years #MetGala Theme is out of touch?” one wrote. “Inequality is at the highest levels since the Gilded Age, a pandemic & economic meltdown wrecked us, inflation is out of control… but cool, let’s wear #GildedAge themed dresses & laugh about inequality.”
“The Met gala is happening again already, and this year’s theme is straight flexing,” political commentator Hasan Piker tweeted. “It’s gilded glamour, at a time when wealth inequality has passed gilded age levels, they’ve gone fully mask off lmao.”
According to Bloomberg, the US GDP has shrunk for the first time since 2020, falling to 1.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2022. Experts have discovered continued to discovered how this drop was due some major issues, including inflation, gas prices, and Covid-19.
Many other Twitter users claimed that the Gilded Age theme wouldn’t sit well with Met Gala viewers because America could be at risk of economic turmoil due to its current challenges.
“It’s too-on-the-nose for the Met Gala to have a ‘Gilded Age’ theme on the same day we know the US economy is contracting,” one tweet reads.
“The Met gala this year is going to piss off people,” another person wrote. “The theme being gilded glamour??? And with everything going on this year yeah people will be mad lol.”
Speaking to The Independent a representative for Condé Nast, a global company that produces Vogue, noted how the goal of the gala is to be a fundraiser.
“[The Met Gala] is the main source of annual funding for the Costume Institute’s exhibitions, acquisitions, and capital improvements,” she said. “I think that often gets lost in the narrative, when it is actually the fundamental purpose of the evening.”
