"The Garden of Time" MET Gala: The Thorns beneath the Rose
And the Aussie "canary in the gold mine", Chris Hemsworth.
Last night was the first Monday in May, otherwise known to the fashion & the society versed as, the MET Gala, fashion’s biggest night of the year.
The gala is hosted by Vogue magazine of Conde Naste and by Vogue’s Editor in Chief, and has been since its reincarnation by Diana Vreeland in the 1970s to raise funds for the museum at the yearly opening of a new costume exhibit. Since that time, and particularly under the leadership of Anna Wintour in recent decades, the event has eclipsed nearly all other society events. The MET Gala pulls the notable & wealthy from all over the world vying for a coveted invitation to the fashion equivalent to the Oscars. Due to this level of prestige, Vogue & the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) has started accepting corporate sponsors, and inviting cultural & business luminaries to sit as “co-hosts” with Anna Wintour in accordance with the yearly theme of the costume and apparel exhibit & the opening gala. In 2018 for example, the “Heavenly Bodies” exhibit saw the MET co-hosting with representatives from the Vatican who contributed a large portion of the Vatican archives to the year's exhibit exploring the use of textiles to bring people closer to the Divine. This year’s theme is a little less divinely inspired, with the theme being “The Garden of Time” - a perhaps wholesome departure from some recent themes like 2019’s “Camp” Gala. But look a little closer, and you will begin to notice some oddities with the theme and the overall message of the event - like walking through a field that somehow feels mildly sinister though outwardly benign.
One such oddity was the strange realization of who had been asked to co-host the event with Anna Wintour - an odd crew of celebrities that makes you feel like you are playing one of those games where you spot “what doesn’t belong”. For me, it was seeing “Thor” walking in with the likes of JLo and Bad Bunny. Chris Hemsworth, of Marvel Universe and chiseled features fame, was co-hosting the MET Gala, fashion's biggest night, alongside celebrities no producer in their right mind would cast together in a movie. Chris, the guy who typically dresses like the beach rat he is, was in a position to sit in authority over the fashion industry’s Oscars? If you are as confused as me, keep reading because, regardless of why he was asked to host, I feel his presence offered an EXTREMELY needed bit of levity and perhaps a critically important clue.
I saw several platforms decrying Hemsworth for “not trying” to be “more fashion forward” on the MET red carpet. I think that was entirely on purpose, on his part. His lovely wife, Elsa, wore an elegant simple gold number that looked phenomenal on her. While Elsa posed on the carpet for the photographers, Hemsworth looked the picture of the “plus-1 husband”, on the sidelines laughing with the press and watching his wife do her thing. You wouldn’t be at fault for forgetting which of the two was host that night - Elsa in her gold sheath & headpiece playing the game, and Chris Hemsworth in a basic beige suit - again, not accidental. Chris Hemsworth is a good looking guy, who has always understood that good fitting clothes boosted his brand, but a fashionista he is not. So true to his Aussie roots, he wasn’t about to pretend he was anything he isn’t. Anna Wintour may have asked him to co-host, but I guarantee you he accepted for his wife’s sake not his own. Hemsworth did not FAIL at the MET Gala, dear critics, he managed to do the one thing most people completely forget on that carpet - to be their authentic selves.
Now, I know full well that Met Gala is not the place for authenticity. Quite the contrary, you could argue a benefit for “a costume institute” can be nothing but pantomimes and caricatures. This aspect of the Met Gala is precisely why people become disillusioned with it, and even the guests eventually bow out of any invites (Eve Mendes wrote this on her Instagram along with a few photos of past Met Gala appearances “Mami at the MET. Fun times - though I do not want an invite anymore, just my memories.” Poignant.) Of course people get exhausted with the whole charade - every year the dresses get bigger & madder, the critics get even more cutting, and the fans invest their souls a little more in how their favorite celeb will “interpret” the exhibit’s theme. This is where I find some Aussie beach rat individuality utterly refreshing in this year's mix.
I myself am a big fan of respecting the person wearing the clothing, and I always have been. Clothes are meant to be worn by people who live their lives in them, not as artifacts to be held up as relics of, I don’t know, commercialism or the commodification of art. Again, you could argue that is exactly what the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute does, but I would disagree on the grounds that all art or commodity is the product of the hands that made them. Preserving fashion isn’t for its own sake, it is to honor the skill of the craftsmen of the past & preserve these physical records of skill for the future.
I also find myself extremely torn on the 1st Monday in May every year. My former agency still runs the massive gala alongside another alma-mater of mine, Vogue. To say it doesn’t bring up painful memories of loss, would be a lie. You can not fly that high and then completely forget the joy & excitement of it. However, I appreciate being on the outside of the glass bubble now in some ways, if for no other reason so that I can see my old world & compatriots through the everyman’s eyes - and it is surreal. The masses of people who flock to this event both online & off are astonishing. The MET Gala is Vogue’s biggest revenue driver all year (upwards of $500 million in media value), and generates more impressions traffic on Vogue’s social media accounts globally than at any other time. However, the majority of normal busy people today just don’t have time for an online debate about how “accurately” Lana Del Rey’s gauzy concoction of a garment was actually the best look of the night. When the rate of global inflation is slow dripping it’s economic torture on rich & poor alike, no one gives a flip about a woman done up to look like a rotting tree, and frankly…they’d be right, it is absurd. So what's the point of the Gala and the elaborate cultural event it creates in the global social calendar, and why do some people care about it so much? Also, why am I talking about it now?
Like I stated - the straightforward answer is that the Gala generates funds for an important cultural institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, home to some of the world's finest works. This year’s cherished Gala theme was on the “Garden of Time”, based on a book by J. G. Ballard of the same name. This was a bit of irony, as the book is all about the wealthy & cultured reveling in their finery as a horde of “the unwashed masses” approaches to destroy it all. A jarringly dystopian reference, if I ever heard of one, and shockingly similar to the highly exclusive event that is the MET Gala in a time of economic & political uncertainty. The whole affair has the distinct aroma of Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon and approaching revolution, no??? This drama only continued to unfurl itself, as we found out that Tik Tok, the Chinese government sponsored social media platform about to be banned in the USA as an entity of a foreign power that has masses of youths addicted to it, was the official financial sponsor of the event. Yes, they do indeed have input on the theme as sponsors of the event, glad you asked. Surely they do not think nobody would notice their little plot line, or is “shock & awe” the point? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Vogue stuck its neck out to whip up controversy. No one would know better than two information platforms, than that people today love to gather and foment over literally anything. Like Antoinette and her “let them eat cake” line however, the whole idea that whipping up condemnation will somehow work in your favor these days feels distinctly out of touch and slightly dangerous. This is where I feel the veneer of Tik Tok’s particular bid for outward social harmony in the form of highly addictive content, begins to flake off and reveal something far more sinister. Perhaps the threat of a US ban is causing them to show their true colors, finally.
But I am not here to cast Tik Tok as the great villain, however; villany is never so neatly assigned as it is in fairy tales, but rather you find that a variety of factors are also complicit. Vogue, and its parent publishing company, Conde Naste, have been struggling to stay relevant for years now - so naturally, they jumped at the idea of partnering with Tik Tok. The incessant drive to stay relevant and popular at any cost has led to the wider artistic community investing less in the pursuit of art and instead participating in the cutthroat game of ever-changing “relevance”. This has resulted in, perhaps more authentically-wholesome artistic individuals being left on the cultural sidelines, and the public being bereft of the art that should mitigate the troubles of our daily lives. So we are left with this unnatural state of affairs - where the highest echelons of art & culture feel both excessively boundary-pushing and deeply out of touch at the same time. We are living through one of those periods of history again where the lived experiences of individuals are wildly diverse depending on their circumstance, privilege, and luck. No wonder the MET Gala evokes emotions on the range between apathy and disgust in most people - the sheer wealth, privilege and excessiveness of it all is enough to make you want to scream. Never fear, I am not advocating for “revolution” or the “guillotine” - but I understand the anger & disdain that bubbles up at times such as these for the trappings of refinement, seemingly held tantalizingly out of reach by most.
All the more reason for the son of an Aussie cattleman to stand apart at this particular Met Gala, and why it is even more puzzling Chris Hemsworth was asked to host at all - or was Anna casting the part of the “working man” in her own mini pantomime? I truly hope not. Like the canary in the coal mine, Hemsworth managed by simply being himself, to stand as a striking sign of exactly what was wrong at this particular MET Gala, and perhaps on a broader note, the 21st century’s version of culture and prestige all together.