By Natalie Padron |Staff Writer|
The Met Gala, also known as “The Oscars of Fashion,” started as a gala to fundraise for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City.
It is one of the biggest fundraisers in the city with a record of $12 million raised in 2014 and the price of tickets for those uninvited continue to rise to now $35,000 to uphold its exclusivity.
The Met Gala has been active since 1964, but the event that it is today did not get started until 1971 with the theme “Fashion Plate,” and every year since then there has been a theme for the guests to interpret correlating with that year’s exhibit.
While guests are invited to the exhibit, they show up to showcase themselves as the main event.
Fashion is vital to the event and it gives stars in fashion, TV, movies, music, and news a night to be glamorously avant-garde and take their place on best dressed lists forever in history, while paying homage to the theme.
The first theme that began a fashion rumble was 1974’s “Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design,” when Cher showed up in who else, but designer Bob Mackie.
Mackie’s nude illusion adorned in white feathers graced the red carpet on a star and ever since then celebrities knew it was time to step up their Met Gala game.
Whether you agree with their fashion choices or not, it is an undeniable fact the Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker have stolen the show at many of the balls.
Madonna’s most recent outlandish look was her 2013 “Punk: Chaos to Couture” ensemble with a short black wig, dominatrix-esque plaid blazer and fishnet tights.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s being just last year with her unforgettable Philip Treacy headpiece for the night of “China: Through the Looking Glass.”
This year was no exception to the night’s fashion expectations, each major celebrity gracing the red carpet in their best interpretation of “Manus X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.”
Big names making Vogue’s best dressed list were Kate Bosworth in Dolce & Gabbana, Brie Larson in Proenza Schouler, Zayn Malik in Versace and many more.
While the stars took the manus x machina theme literally with robotic inspired outfits, the actual costume exhibit was focused on the idea that handmade fashion and machine-made fashion are hot as dichotomous as everyone thinks.
The garments on display came in all shapes and sizes showing what beautiful creations hand and machine can make together, such as feathered, intricately beaded, sequined, and beautiful floral designs.
There were machine-made pieces shown that dated back all the way to the 1950’s like Christian Dior’s 1958 haute couture as well as beautiful Chanel couture from the Autumn/Winter 2014 to 2015 collection.
Fashion is not the only thing that ensues this fabulous event, after all it is a party and with all these influential big personalities it’s bound to be fun.
As Instagram witnessed, the dance battle between Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift was humbling to such an event.
The musical performance by The Weeknd brought the crowd to their feet and according to Vogue, rap sensation Nas later joined the performance to sing a few songs.
This iconic event has been everything—fashion, history, laughs and memories, for the past 70 years and for those fashion fiends’ sake, let’s hope it goes on for much longer.
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