JULY 2024 ISSUE
MET GALA 2024
THE GARDEN OF TIME
Report by Genevieve Redding
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From the Desk of the Publisher
In this issue, our fashion correspondent, Genevieve, made a report of the latest Met Gala. The Met Gala is formally known as the Costume Institute Gala, is an annual fundraising gala for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. It marks the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibition.
Each year, the Met Gala has a different theme related to the exhibit at the Costume Institute. This year’s new exhibition is, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” in addition to the theme, the Met Gala has also a “dress code,” and this year’s dress code is “The Garden of Time.” This year’s gala was held in May 6, 2024.
Met Gala tickets which are by invitation-only, the cost is $75,000 per ticket.
The Met Gala remains a symbol of high fashion and cultural significance, it is reflecting the evolving landscape of fashion and celebrity culture.
Met Gala was founded in 1948 by the publicist Eleanor Lambert. In recent year, Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, became chair of the event. We have seen under her tenure the Met Gala has grown into one of the most prominent and exclusive social event in the world.
We are pleased that Genevieve has alerted the journal to give Met Gala the awareness that it deserves.
MET GALA 2024
THE GARDEN OF TIME
The Garden of Time
This year’s 2024 Met Gala theme, The Garden of Time, provides a plethora of inspiration for lingerie design. The theme first requires an understanding of the Costume Institute’s new exhibition concept, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. This exhibition celebrates clothing pieces so fragile that they can never be worn again. There are references to nature throughout the exhibit, including flowers, birds, and butterflies, as well as, the elements of earth, air, and water. The fabrics have faded and deteriorated over time, and have been reawakened for the exhibition.
The dress code of The Garden of Time was inspired by a short story written in 1962 by J.G. Ballard. As summarized by Vogue magazine: “The Garden of Time tells of Count Axel and his wife, the countess, in their utopia of leisure, art, and beauty; they live in a villa with a terrace that overlooks a garden of crystalline flowers with translucent leaves, gleaming glass-like stems, and crystals at the heart of every bloom.
Though, all of Ballard’s work (Ballardian) has come to represent dystopian modernity, bleak artificial landscapes, and the psychological effects of technological, social, or environmental developments. There is a dystopian element to their paradise; holding onto it is like trying to keep every grain of a fistful of sand intact in your palm.
Beyond the walls of Count Axel’s villa, an encroaching and chaotic mob draws nearer every hour. To restore tranquility, the count must pluck a time-reversing flower from his garden until there are none left. The story ends with the unthinking mob descending onto the villa, now a derelict property with a neglected garden, in which a statue of the count and his countess stand entangled in thorny belladonna plants.”
This year’s theme was interpreted in a multitude of ways. The exhibition, as well as the gala dress code, is about fleeting beauty. The most obvious interpretation of the theme was melancholic florals. The reversal of time and our powerlessness over it was another theme interpreted with clocks and the sands of time. The fragility of fabrics that have faded and deteriorated over time represent fleeting beauty, a metaphor for fashion’s ephemerality. Crystals represented the garden’s crystalline flowers, and sculptured and molded bodices often entangled in leaves depict the statues of the count and countess at the end of the story.
