Everything you need to know about the 2022 Met Gala

The 2022 Met Gala theme, In America: An Anthology of Fashion, is built around the tenets of American style, and celebrates unsung heroes of US design. Even though only eight months will have passed since Kim Kardashian climbed the Met steps in her Balenciaga mask by then, this year’s ceremony will take place on May 2nd—a return to the event’s traditional first Monday in May slot after two years of COVID chaos.

Below, everything you need to know about the 2022 Met Gala.

The 2022 Met Gala will take place on Monday 2 May in New York City. It celebrates the second volume in a two-part Costume Institute exhibition. The first, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, opened on September 18, and was preceded by the 2021 Met Gala on September 13.

The theme for part two is In America: An Anthology of Fashion, and the exhibition will see Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Museum of Modern Art’s Costume Institute, focus on inclusivity in fashion. “Who gets to be American?” was a question posed at Prabal Gurung’s spring/summer 2020 show, and it will be addressed at the Met Gala 2022, as well.

As for the exhibition, presented across 13 of the American period rooms in the museum, it “provides a historical context for Lexicon, in a way,” Bolton told Vogue. “The stories really reflect the evolution of American style, but they also explore the work of individual tailors, dress-makers, and designers,” he says. “What’s exciting for me is that some of the names will be very familiar to students of fashion, like Charles James, Halston, and Oscar de la Renta, but a lot of the other names really have been forgotten, overlooked or relegated into the footnotes of fashion history. So one of the main intentions of the exhibition is to spotlight the talents and contributions of these individuals, and many of them are women.”

On March 17, Vogue announced that its 2022 hosts would include Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lin-Manuel Miranda as the night’s official co-chairs, while designer Tom Ford, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri, and Vogue’s Anna Wintour will continue as honorary co-chairs. Anna Wintour has run the Met Gala since 1995, shaping it into the much-loved annual celebration of fashion we know today.

Last year, Vogue livestreamed the Met Gala on its website, beginning from 5:30pm EST. The coverage was hosted by actor and recording artist Keke Palmer, and actor, writer, and director Ilana Glazer, with the pair interviewing guests as they arrived on the Met Gala red carpet. Fashion fans can follow all the action on Vogue US’s livestream once again for 2022.

Organised and presided over by Anna Wintour since 1995, the Met Gala has become a much-loved annual celebration of fashion. The Met Gala is a charity event that is considered a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, it has traditionally been timed to mark the opening of its annual fashion exhibition. Year after year, the event raises eight-figure sums.

In short: it’s a secret. For this reason, guests must abide by the no phone (and, therefore, no social media) policy. However, Kendall Jenner gave us a behind the scenes look at the Met Gala through her camera last year. The event usually involves a high-profile performer (like Rihanna), and guests always explore the exhibition before sitting down together for dinner.

The Met Gala takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on the first Monday in May each year (with the exception of the 2021 event, which took place in September due to Covid restrictions).

Until the evening before the event, the guest list is top secret. But some of the biggest names in the business regularly attend—from Beyoncé and Lady Gaga to Madonna and Rihanna. More often than not, designers attend with their muses: think Marc Jacobs and Kate Moss, or Nicolas Ghesquière and Emma Stone.

The event usually hosts around 600 attendees, although a smaller number attended the 2021 Met Gala. The event welcomes stars, young creatives, and industry paragons each year. Revisit some of the best looks from long-time Met Gala attendees such as Blake Lively, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rihanna and more of the best looks of all time.

In keeping with the theme, look forward to a range of American talent represented, including the likes of Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, and Prabal Gurung. Here, revisit the best looks from the last decade.

After the 2020 Met Gala was canceled due to the pandemic, the Costume Institute announced a two-part version for 2021 and 2022. The first exhibition, with a theme of In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, opened on September 18, and the 2021 Met Gala itself—which was co-chaired by Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman and Naomi Osaka—took place five days earlier on September 13.

The theme for part one celebrated American designers, as well as cultural, political and social events that occurred during the pandemic. “The main one was the fact that the American fashion community has been supporting us for 75 years, really since the beginning of the Costume Institute, so I wanted to acknowledge its support, and also to celebrate and reflect upon American fashion,” Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute, told Vogue at the time. And he also felt it needed to be revisited (American Ingenuity in 1998 was the last big exhibition to cover the theme).

“I think that the emphasis on conscious creativity was really consolidated during the pandemic and the social justice movements,” Bolton said. “And I’ve been really impressed by American designers’ responses to the social and political climate, particularly around issues of body inclusivity and gender fluidity, and I’m just finding their work very, very self-reflective. I really do believe that American fashion is undergoing a Renaissance. I think young designers, in particular, are at the vanguard of discussions about diversity and inclusion, as well as sustainability and transparency, much more so than their European counterparts, maybe with the exception of the English designers.”

The event on September 13 was hosted by co-chairs Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman, and Naomi Osaka, and honorary chairs Tom Ford, Adam Mosseri, and Anna Wintour. Due to pandemic guidelines, the celebrity-studded red carpet was a smaller affair than usual, with invites stipulating a dress code inspired by American Independence.