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About Met Gala

The Met Gala, formally known as the Costume Institute Benefit, is an annual fundraising event held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, supporting the museum's Costume Institute and its exhibitions on fashion history and design. Its date shifts each year because the event is scheduled for the first Monday in May, a formula-based rule rather than a fixed calendar date, so the exact date moves depending on which day of the week May 1 falls on in a given year. This first-Monday tradition is a comparatively recent development; the gala has been held since 1948, but the event was originally held at other points in the calendar, including late November or early December in earlier decades, and the now-iconic early-May slot was only formally adopted in the mid-2000s. Each year's event is tied to the opening of that year's spring Costume Institute exhibition, with a specific theme and accompanying dress code that guests, many of them celebrities, fashion designers, and cultural figures, are expected to interpret through their attire on the red carpet. The evening functions as the primary source of annual funding for the Costume Institute's exhibitions and publications, with tickets and tables commanding very high prices as part of the fundraising model. A common misconception is assuming the Met Gala has always been held on the first Monday in May; in fact, that specific scheduling convention is a relatively recent tradition, and the event's date, and even its exhibition-tied theme structure, has evolved considerably since the gala's founding in the late 1940s.

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