Met Gala

The Met Gala, formally called the Costume Institute Benefit, is the annual haute couture fundraising festival held at and for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute on the Museum Mile of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Met Gala is popularly regarded as the world's most prestigious and glamorous event in fashion, where fame, wealth, power, social influence, and spectacle collide and peak simultaneously. Attendees are given the opportunity to express themselves through fashion, often producing elaborate and highly publicized outfits inspired by the evening's theme and broader cultural context. The event is organized by the fashion and glamor magazine Vogue and is known as "fashion's biggest night", where "haute couture intersects with history to create the ultimate cultural moment – all in the name of art". Known as "the world's most exclusive party", an invitation is highly sought after. Invitees to attend the Met Gala in a given year are typically personalities widely perceived to be culturally relevant to contemporary society at the world's crossroads of various professional spheres, including fashion, digital and social media, tech, music, Broadway, Wall Street, film, television, sports, and politics.

The Gala is held annually on the first Monday of May, which marks the opening of the Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibit hosted on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Many of the attendees are depicted on the covers and pages of Vogue. Each year's event celebrates the specific theme of that year's Costume Institute exhibition, which sets the tone for the formal attire of the night.