The biggest fashion night of the year is just around the corner, and the Met Gala red carpet theme has finally been revealed, with superstars Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth serving as this year’s co-chairs.
Organizers announced today that the official dress code for the May 6 event is “Garden of Time. The theme takes its title from a 1962 short story by British author JG Ballard, which is set (as the title suggests) in a garden filled with translucent, time-manipulating flowers.
Ballard was closely associated with New Wave science fiction, and he often set his highly relevant anti-utopian stories in times of ecological apocalypse or the rise of dissident technology.
Ballard’s themes accompany the Costume Institute’s exhibition “Sleeping Beauty: Reviving Fashion,” which runs May 10 through September 2 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition includes some 250 objects and costumes from the Met’s rich archives, many of which are too fragile to be displayed on mannequins. Instead, the most delicate historical pieces will be laid flat in hanging glass coffins – like Princess Aurora in the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty (if you will).
With the theme being “The Garden of Time,” this year’s red carpet is sure to have plenty of flowers, but the novel that inspired it has a darker tone. (Above: Rihanna at the 2023 Met Gala.)
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“It’s very much an ode to the emotional poetics of nature and fashion,” Costume Institute curator Wendy Yu Andrew Bolton told Vogue of the show. “I hope the show inspires a sensual appreciation of fashion.”
This year’s co-chairs – along with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour – include Met Gala mainstays and debuts. Hemsworth will be attending the event for the first time, while Zendaya will return for the first time in several years. Honorary chairs include Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
The complexity and conceptual nature of this year’s dress code contrasts sharply with last year’s commemorative tribute to the legacy of Karl Lagerfeld, with Met Gala themes often oscillating between simple retrospectives (such as the 1996 event’s homage to Christian Dior and the 1997 theme’s tribute to Gianni Versace) and more subtle, subjective hints. and more subtle, subjective hints. A fan favorite is the 2018 theme, “Heavenly Bodies,” which encourages guests to delve into the rich and imaginative history of Catholicism.
This year, guests will have plenty of vivid reference points to unpack. In Ballard’s tale, the Earl of Axel and his wife are trapped in their walled garden as an angry mob gathers outside their door. As it dwindles with time-reversing flowers, both men realize the fate that awaits them.
On the red carpet, we may see a literal interpretation of the fictional flower, with its distinctive stems “like glass rods” and petals surrounding a “crystal heart”. But there is something depressing and melancholic in Ballard’s vision. As Vogue noted, “moody flowers aren’t moody enough,” so expect lots of black, or darker, gothic flowers.