Tickets to the Met Gala are notoriously expensive, estimated at $35,000 a chair — and many major designers are known to purchase entire tables for $200,000 to $300,000.
But according to Women’s Wear Daily, this year at least three major designers may be opting out of spending quite so much at the fashionable fundraiser.
Reportedly, Ralph Lauren, Dior, and Calvin Klein aren’t buying tables to fill with celebrity guests at 2019’s ‘Oscars of the East’ on May 6.
Uh-oh! Ralph Lauren, Dior, and Calvin Klein reportedly aren’t buying tables for this year’s Met Gala (Kerry Washington pictured wearing Ralph Lauren in 2018)
Star-studded: Ralph Lauren typically buys up a whole table for $200,000 to $300,000 and fills it with celebrities, including Priyanka Chopra and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley last year
The event will certainly boast its fair share of A-list attendees, including three co-chairs: Serena Williams, Lady Gaga and Harry Styles.
And this news doesn’t mean the design houses won’t be represented at the Met Gala at all — they may just be planning on a smaller presence.
A source with knowledge about the event told DailyMail.com that at least some of the designers named by WWD have purchased tickets to the event, suggesting it is likely that they will dress at least one or two celebrity attendees.
In the past, bigger brands like Ralph Lauren and Dior have bought up entire tables and invited several celebrities to sit with them — and, naturally, be dressed by them. For instance, in 2018, Ralph Lauren’s guests included Kerry Washington, Priyanka Chopra, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Lily Aldridge, and Shailene Woodley.
It is worth noting, however, that Calvin Klein skipped the event altogether last year.
It hasn’t been reported why the brand have opted for the change, whether it be money trouble, brand restructuring, or simply a desire to pull back from the star-studded extravaganza.
Two of the three fashion houses are undergoing some changes at the moment.
Will they be there? It’s unclear if the designers will still show up and simply buy fewer tickets (Emma Watson pictured wearing Calvin Klein in 2016)
Money: The pricey tickets raise funds for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute (left: Lupita Nyong’o in Calvin Klein in 2016; right: Julianne Moore in Calvin Klein in 2017)
In December, Raf Simons resigned as creative director for Calvin Klein and the company has yet to hire a replacement.
The brand is also closing its Manhattan flagship store, which had been renovated just two years ago, and is planning to relaunch its ready-to-wear line under a new name.
Meanwhile, Ralph Lauren’s senior vice president and creative director of the women’s Lauren and Chaps brands Kevin Carrigan also resigned earlier this year.
Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri is still firmly in at Dior.
Even if Dior, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren don’t show up, it’s sure to be a designer-packed even. Other brands expected to be there are Gucci (which is sponsoring the event), Louis Vuitton, and Burberry.
And Vogue editor-in-chief and Met Gala chair Anna Wintour, 69, has already teased her outfit for the night. While she didn’t confirm it’s by Chanel, she has worn the designer to the Met Gala nearly every single year — with the exception of 2012, when the theme was ‘Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations’. That year, she wore Prada.
Several of the brands are in the midst of leadership changes, with the exception of Dior (Jennifer Lawrence pictured wearing the designer in 2015)
Fashionable statement: Cara Delevingne is pictured wearing Dior in 2018
Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Wintour promised that her look for the night will have ‘millions of feathers’ — a clear reference to this year’s theme.
For 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibit — and the Met Gala celebrating it — are dedicated to the idea of ‘camp,’ as defined by Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay Notes on ‘Camp.’
The essay includes the line, ‘The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance. Camp is a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers.’
Other lines from the essay, which are sure to inspire the stars’ fashion choices, include:
‘Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism. It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp, is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice, of stylization.
Preview: Anna Wintour promised that her look for the night will have ‘millions of feathers’ — a clear reference to this year’s Camp theme
Designer loyalty: She has worn Chanel almost every year, with an exception made for the Prada theme in 2012 (pictured in 2018)
‘All Camp objects, and persons, contain a large element of artifice. Nothing in nature can be campy … Rural Camp is still man-made, and most campy objects are urban.
‘Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style — but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the “off,” of things-being-what-they-are-not.
‘To camp is a mode of seduction — one which employs flamboyant mannerisms susceptible of a double interpretation; gestures full of duplicity, with a witty meaning for cognoscenti and another, more impersonal, for outsiders.
‘The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to “the serious.” One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.
‘The ultimate Camp statement: it’s good because it’s awful … Of course, one can’t always say that. Only under certain conditions …’