How New York's Most Glamorous And Fashionable Fundraiser Began

The Met Gala is one of the most popular social events of the year. It happens on the first Monday of May every year. Celebrities and the press gather to show off the trendiest of fashions that fit the theme for the year.

Since 1995, fashion bible Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, has been the co-chair of the Met Gala. According to The Today Show, every year a major celebrity is brought in to help her put together the event.

This format has made it the must-attend event of the season for celebrities and people involved in the fashion world. It is the place to see and be seen. Gossip is ignited or extinguished at the event.

In order to keep the event exclusive, tickets cost a small fortune. Business Insider reports that tickets to the 2024 gala cost $75,000 for individual tickets and $350,000 for a table. And a celebrity must be invited to the event, they cannot just buy a ticket.

But it was not always this way. When the Met Gala started in 1948, the elite of Manhattan’s social scene were invited. However, it was not the big spectacle that it has become in more modern times. The event was much more subdued.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that the event is a fundraiser. The recipient of the money raised is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, one of the premiere fashion schools in the world.

Eleanor Lambert helped to launch New York’s Fashion Week. She was passionate about the fashion industry and was able to identify up-and-coming designers. And the Costume Institute was close to her heart.

She began organizing a fundraiser for it. One of her first thoughts was to throw a dinner party, but this had to be more than that. Her idea was to do it during the holidays, when people would be more generous with their donations.

According to Time, those who were at the first Met Gala paid $50 per person. A hefty amount of money at the time, but Lambert was popular and her goal of turning fashion into a respectable industry was welcomed by many of the people in the city.

The idea she came up with was a midnight dinner. According to Food Timeline, a midnight dinner is a meal that takes place in the later hours of the night. It is usually designed for after mass or for a good cause.

For the first Met Gala, the party started with a cocktail hour. People were treated to the best alcohol available. During the first hour, there was a lot of encouragement for the attendees to donate money to the institute.

Everyone gathered at the Waldorf Astoria, one of the hot spots for the social scene at the time. It was billed as “the party of the year” and indeed it made all of the newspapers. People talked about it for weeks afterward and clamored to be invited to the next one.

Lambert continued to chair the Met Gala for the next two decades. She turned it into the social event of the season.

In 1972, Diana Vreeland took over as co-chair of the Met Gala from Eleanor Lambert. Both women shared a passion for fashion and for the Costume Institute. When Vreeland took over, her goal was to transform the event into something new and bold.

One of her first steps was to begin a tradition that continues to this day. Vreeland told those who would be attending that there would be a theme starting in 1973. The first theme was a Cristóbal Balenciaga retrospective, in celebration of his life and mourning his passing.

Vreeland was astonished by the response to the gala. The theme brought out big stars and raised a lot of money for the Costume Institute. She began to lean into the costume aspect of the event, National Geographic reported.

Like Lambert, before her, Vreeland gave up her gala chair position after a little more than two decades in the role. Anna Wintour took over as co-chair in 1995. She has co-chaired it every year since, with the exception of 1996 and 1998.

One of her first moves was to change the date of the gala. She decided that the first Monday in May was a better fit for it than in December. Doing it then opened up the number of people who were able to attend and helped with the donations.

She also brought in major celebrities to co-chair the event with her. In 2024, Jennifer Lopez was chosen to help put together the gala.

Having a celebrity as a co-chair has allowed there to be more press. It also opens the doors to bring in more benefactors.

The Met’s website talks about how the event evolved from the origins as a midnight dinner party to the fashion event of the year. They note that Lambert and Vreeland’s fingerprints are still all over the event, how the women pioneered it to become what it is today.