The Met Gala, known as the biggest night of fashion, returns to its normal time – the first Monday in May – after two years of disruption due to the pandemic. The event, held 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”, hosted by the Museum’s Costume Institute. The guests were invited to dress in “Gilded Glamor and White Tie”, referring to the rich golden age, a period of three decades in the late 19th century that changed the American infrastructure and the life of society. However, the gala documentation has changed in recent years, as photographers have largely limited themselves to taking long poses at the entrances of attendees. and images from the tightly controlled press area are polished and repetitive. To see celebrities relax (such as Bella Hadid and Marc Jacobs bathing in the bathroom for smoking breaks, for example) you need to turn to post-party photos or their Instagram streams. The images from yesterday’s gala are tempting because of their nostalgia and retro style, but they also reveal a more relaxed atmosphere that is not limited to arrivals on the red carpet. Photographer Rose Hartmann, who photographed the gala for decades until the early 2000s, recalled by telephone a time when there was more freedom to move around and engage with attendees. In 1986, he photographed actress Lynda Carter and social laughter Blaine Trump. Hartman felt the close friendship between Linda Carter and Blaine Trump as they laughed, but he also noted how glamorous they looked as they did. Created by: Rose Hartman / Getty Images “They talked very happily to each other instead of posing,” Hartman told CNN in 2020. “I always try whenever possible to immortalize people who are engaged to each other.” Photographer Ron Galella, who has been photographing the gala since 1967, had a system for capturing the best shots, from coat-check-in arrivals to the museum floor and dinner. “It was easy to shoot inside,” he wrote in an email in 2020. “A New York Press card was all you needed to gain entry.” (When press releases were finally restricted, there were years when he entered secretly from the employee’s entrance.) Cher smokes a cigarette during the “Romantic and Glamourous Hollywood Design Exhibition” Met Gala in 1974. Credit: Ron Galella / Getty Images via Getty Over the decades, since the first rerun of the event in 1948, the gala has transformed from a fancy festival to off-site locations such as Manhattan’s Rainbow Room into a fashion show. Socialists and artists have left the spotlight on A-list celebrities, who make headlines about how they choose to interpret or defy the theme of the night. The theme is based on a new exhibition by the Costume Institute, such as this year’s two-part show honoring American designers. Other topics include “Camp: Notes on Fashion” of 2019 and “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” of 2018. The change in guest list and atmosphere was largely due to a generational change in vision. In the 1970s, Vogue editor Diana Vreeland set the gala as the opening showroom for the Institute’s major exhibitions and invited her to the crème de la crème of New York’s fashion and society, but her successor, Anna Wintour, has favor high profile musicians. actors and entertainment figures, using $ 30,000 tickets to the event to raise millions of dollars each year. In 1999, Wintour’s first year as president of the event, Hartman took a photo of Vogue editor-in-chief with former editor-in-chief André Leon Talley, who died earlier this year. Their image is happy, with both publishers glamorous in their costumes and on the move. “I like the fact that they walk instead of standing,” Hartman said. “I love the gesture of their movement.” Galella captured this light moment of Iman, Paloma Picasso and Raphael Lopez Sanchez at the Met Gala in 1983, honoring the work of Yves St. Laurent. Created by: Ron Galella / Getty Images Galella’s huge archive of images from the Met Gala, which he published in a book in 2019, also shows the attractive gestures among celebrities when they are not waiting for a camera flash. In 1983, he photographed supermodel Iman and designer Paloma Picasso laughing as Picasso’s husband leaned down to hug the iconic Iman from her waist. In 1995, he caught Christie Turlington ostensibly making fun of Kate Moss by sliding his finger on the dangerously lowered back of Moss’s white toilet. Supermodels Kate Moss and Christy Turlington fool around at the 1995 Met Gala. Created by: Ron Galella / Getty Images These days the gala may take itself seriously with its meticulous image, but Galella believes it is a global feeling to want to see the entertainment and fashion elite frustrate its guards. “We see them in movies, we see them as superstars. But I want to see them as human beings,” he told Forbes. “How beautiful are they when they are not playing?”
