We now know the most highly guarded details of the 2024 Met Gala held on Monday night.

The 2024 Costume Institute exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” will feature approximately 250 items drawn from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection, many of which have rarely been seen in public before.

What is the Met Gala 2024 theme?

The 2024 Met Gala will celebrate the Costume Institute’s new exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” and the official dress code is “The Garden of Time.”

The exhibit will feature approximately 250 rare items drawn from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection. Spanning over 400 years of fashion history, the pieces will include designs by Schiaparelli, Dior, Givenchy, and more.

Some garments that are too fragile to ever be worn again—such as a Charles Frederick Worth ball gown from 1877—will also be displayed via video animation, light projection, AI, CGI, and other forms of sensory stimulation.

Who is hosting the Met Gala 2024?

The 2024 Met Gala hosts are Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth. They follow last year’s star studded group: Penélope Cruz, Michaela Coel, Roger Federer, Dua Lipa, and Vogue’s Anna Wintour.

The latter has run the Met Gala since 1995, shaping it into the much-loved annual celebration of fashion we know today.

What is the dress code?

This year’s 2024 Met Gala dress code is “The Garden of Time.” Inspired by JG Ballard’s short story of the same title, written in 1962, it can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

Still, we’ll likely see many a floral and botanical looks grace the famed Met Gala red carpet.

What is the Met Gala?

The Met Gala is a charity event and fundraiser for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

It has traditionally been timed to mark the opening of its annual fashion exhibition. Year after year, the event raises eight-figure sums.

Who is invited to the Met Gala?

Until the evening before the event, the guest list is top secret. But some of the biggest names in the business regularly attend—from Beyoncé and Gigi Hadid to Madonna and Rihanna. More often than not, designers attend with their muses: think Marc Jacobs and Kate Moss, or Nicolas Ghesquière and Emma Stone. See everything that goes into the Met Gala seating chart here.

Who attends the Met Gala?

The event usually hosts around 450 attendees, welcoming stars, young creatives, and industry paragons each year. Revisit some of the best looks from long-time attendees such as Blake Lively, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rihanna, and more of the best Met Gala looks of all time.

From Bad Bunny’s Tudor-inspired hat and shoes resembling cloven hooves to the hummingbird perched delicately on Zendaya’s neck, the hosts set the tone at fashion’s biggest night — the annual Met Gala in New York.

Florals, animals and vintage couture abounded at the so-called Oscars of the East Coast, a mammoth fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

The extravaganza’s dress code this year is “The Garden of Time” — which draws inspiration from the 1962 short story of the same name, written by English writer J.G. Ballard.

In essence, it is about the ephemeral nature of beauty — perhaps a weighty theme to press on the luminaries attending this year’s gala. For sheer drama, co-host Zendaya dominated the green and cream carpet in her first appearance at the Met Gala since 2019.

The 27-year-old star made a highly-anticipated appearance early on wreathed in jewel-toned lame, organza and satin designed by John Galliano, with vines crawling up her duchess corset and arms — and what appeared to be a hummingbird nestled into her neck.

Hours later she made a surprise second appearance — this time in dramatic, Mexican Gothic-inspired black, her two outfits bookending the fashion parade and underscoring the transience of beauty.

Most attendees chose to evoke awakenings and life — and perhaps defied the theme by demonstrating the immortality of fashion through the centuries, with many 17th and 18th century flourishes.

Some — such as singer Lana del Rey — emphasised decay, with stark sculptural twigs rising from her gown to hold a veil of tulle like a canopy over her head.

South African singer Tyla’s strapless Balmain gown evoking the sands of time — right down to the hourglass purse — was sculpted so tightly to her body that she had to be carried up the steps at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny evoked a kind of Tudor matador with a sweeping hat and a black bouquet, with the only pop of color his bright red inseam and the patent shine of his cloven shoes.

Cardi B was resplendent in funereal black, with a train so expansive it required nine tuxedoed men to lift it up the stairs. “It’s a black rose,” she told journalists.

‘Mysterious and unexpected’

Celebrity interpretation of Met Gala themes have been wide-ranging and often sparked social media debate — but attendees this year appeared to shrug off the pressure.

“I don’t even think there’s pressure at all, I think it’s more of an opportunity,” actor Colman Domingo, who carried a bouquet in a lily-colored caped jacket and wide-leg trousers, told journalists.

The theme parallels the exhibit “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” which focuses on the most fragile pieces of the Costume Institute’s vast collection.

The show, which will be on view for the public from May 10 through September 2, features clothing so delicate it cannot be displayed on mannequins. The Costume Institute relies on the blockbuster Met Gala to fund its work, including exhibitions and acquisitions.

The gala was first held in 1948 and for decades was reserved for New York high society. Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the high priestess of US fashion, took over the show in the 1990s, transforming the party into a catwalk for the rich and famous.

This year, a ticket cost a cool $75,000, with tables starting at $350,000. The 2023 gala — which celebrated the late designer Karl Lagerfeld — raised nearly $22 million, a record sum. But what exactly goes on inside is an enduring mystery.

“Something mysterious, I’m sure, and unexpected,” actor Jeff Goldblum told journalists on the red carpet, dressed as a count swathed in Tiffany jewels.

Guests are likely to peruse the exhibit, and stars such as Rihanna — whose command of the red carpet is usually unparalleled, but who did not appear at this year’s gala — have performed in the past.

Social media frenzy

The spectacle is social media catnip for celebrity watchers — and once again this year, both the gala and the exhibit are co-sponsored by TikTok.

The tech world joined luminaries of music, film, politics and sports on the carpet, with TikTok CEO Shou Chew, also an honorary co-chair, in attendance.

Outside the event, several hundred protesters against the war in Gaza demonstrated nearby, with security tight and several arrests made as stars walked the red carpet.

Having shaken four continents, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour finally brings the biggest pop culture icon of the century to Europe from Thursday, starting with a four-night run in Paris.

Swift has broken almost every record in music, and her sixth tour is no exception.

The Eras Tour, which began in March 2023, is already the first to sell more than $1 billion in tickets, and is expected to more than double that by the time it concludes in Vancouver this December.

Swifties in Paris are especially excited to hear songs off her new album, “The Tortured Poets Society”, being performed for the first time.

Many critics have derided the 31-track album as bloated and mediocre – “a rare misstep” in the words of British music mag NME.

Such blasphemy leaves her devoted fanbase seeing red –- Paste magazine felt the need to keep their damning review anonymous, knowing all too well how her fans would react.

But a few bad reviews are unlikely to lead to a cruel summer for Swift – the album sold 1.4 million copies on its first day and broke every streaming record going, reaching a billion streams on Spotify within five days.

Some 42,000 people will see Swift in Paris before she heads on for dates in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria.

Many are travelling a long way – around one in five of the Paris audience is coming from the United States, according to the La Defense Arena where she is performing.

ECONOMIC JUGGERNAUT

The 34-year-old’s tour remains a money-making machine beyond the wildest dreams of promoters and venues.

Research group QuestionPro estimated that last year’s US dates generated $5 billion for the country’s economy. The US Travel Association said the figure may have exceeded $10 billion when hotel rooms, restaurants and other indirect sales were included.

The La Defense Arena says it has doubled the previous record of merchandise-sellers across its dates.

The mere mention of a London pub, The Black Dog, on her new album was enough to send a swarm of Swifties to its doors this month, potentially saving the struggling boozer.

Fans tracked it down after realising it lay close to the home of British actor Joe Alwyn, with whom Swift had a six-year relationship that ended last summer.

Swift’s tell-all dissections of her love stories have been the fuel powering her global domination, and fans have been pouring over “The Tortured Poets Department” for cryptic clues about Alwyn, her short-but-dramatic fling with Matty Healy (lead singer of The 1975), and her current beau, American football star Travis Kelce.

“There is something in her music that captures the adolescent desire for a poetic existence, charged with passion, danger and love,” said Satu Hämeenaho-Fox, author of “Into the Taylor-Verse”.

Soukeyna, a 16-year-old fan travelling up from southwest France for opening night, said Swift gives her “the feeling of being part of a community”.

“She’s a complete artist who writes her own words, and you really have to listen to the lyrics and understand them, which is something unique,” she added.