The most highly anticipated and biggest events in the fashion calendar, The Met Gala previously scheduled to take place on May 4th 2020 has been postponed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The cancellation of this iconic fashion yearly gathering comes after a wave of cancellation of global events such as Coachella, NBA season, SXSW, and others.
Vogue’s Editor in Chief, Anna Wintour has been hosting the event, which is a hand-picked celebrity fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Met Gala, has without fail, always been held on the first Monday in May every year – a date which also marks the launch of the institute’s Spring exhibition.
With a different theme set for the fashion event every year, 2020’s was “About Time: Fashion and Duration,” and is sponsored by luxury fashion house, Louis Vuitton, with a reference to the history of fashion: from 1870 to present day.
On Friday March 13th 2020, the Met Museum also announced that it would be temporarily closing, which led to the speculation that the much awaited gala’s organizers would also consider postponing the event. Anna Wintour took to Vogue.com to confirm the status of the pending gala, stating, "Due to the unavoidable and responsible decision by the Metropolitan Museum to close its doors, About Time, and the opening night gala, will be postponed to a later date," but also stated that the magazine’s May issue would still be reviewing the Met’s spring exhibition regardless of the event not taking place.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the Met Gala has had to change its plans to take place in its 72-year history, for example, the gala didn’t go ahead when President John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and then following the devastating effects of 9/11 in 2002.
The Met Gala is an exclusively invite-only event, and tickets are priced upwards of $30,000USD, which is a significant part of the Met Museum’s income. Last year, the New York Times reported that the event had raised $15 million for the Costume Institute exhibit.
At present, neither Anna Wintour or the museum have conveyed any further information about when the event would be rescheduled for. The 2020 spring exhibition was supposed to be linked to the museum’s 150th anniversary celebrations, which was scheduled to feature 160 fashion pieces and would be open to the public from May 7th up until September 7th 2020.
