79 Years of the Met Ball: From Diana Vreeland to E! News

April 29, 2016 by admin
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Legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland with designer Bill Blass at the 1981 gala, in celebration of the

Vreeland died in 1989, and that same year Richard Martin became the Costume Institute’s chief curator. Martin joined from the Fashion Institute of Technology and brought Koda — who had left the Met in 1979 to work at FIT — with him. “He was the intellect behind the interpretation,” Koda says of their relationship. Koda would choose many of the objects, while Martin did all of the writing, putting each piece into context for the viewer. Martin and Koda’s Costume Institute was different from Vreeland’s. She would borrow dozens of pieces from outside museums and keep them on display for nine months at a time. As concerns about wear increased — light damage is particularly destructive to clothing — the loans decreased. Instead of hosting one nine-month exhibit per year, Martin chose to create three themed exhibits so that clothes from the archive were not used as often.

According to Koda, the 1993 exhibition, Infra-Apparel, was a defining moment for the duo. In many ways it was a history of lingerie, but it was also an examination of cultural mores. For instance, they showed a Jean Paul Gaultier bustier outfit next to a 1780s gown made of lightweight, ultrafine cotton. The latter is called a chemise à la reine, named after Marie Antoinette, who scandalized by wearing what many felt looked too much like lingerie. Fast-forward more than 200 years, and Madonna was making similar headlines by arriving onstage in Gaultier’s cone bra.

“We realized that if you just showed the Marie Antoinette dress, no one would come,” Koda says. “By comparing it to something contemporary and familiar, it makes the [Marie Antoinette dress] more relevant.”

When Martin died in 1999, Koda was appointed curator in charge. (Andrew Bolton, Koda’s successor, joined in 2002.) During Koda’s time at the helm, the museum hosted some of the most captivating and well-attended costume exhibitions in the history of the medium, from 2001’s Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years — guest-curated by Vogue international editor at large Hamish Bowles — to Savage Beauty, which attracted more than 660,000 visitors, placing it among the 10 most viewed exhibitions in the museum’s history. Last year’s China: Through the Looking Glass saw a record 761,000 visitors and was given a three-week extension.

Over the years, the institute has also played a role in the careers of fashion luminaries including Vogue editors Tonne Goodman and André Leon Talley, both of whom worked under Vreeland, as well as Doonan and even designer Zac Posen, who interned there as a high school student in the late ‘90s.

Designer Zac Posen with Dita Von Teese, in one of his gowns, at the 2014 gala,

Posen landed at the Met by introducing himself to Martin during a visit to the Costume Institute in 1997. While much of his time was spent clipping newspaper articles and doing other sorts of basic research, it was not entirely without glamour. Once, he was allowed to skip school so he could be at the museum when John Galliano, who’d just been installed at the house of Dior, came in to research the archives with muse Vanessa Bellanger and business partner Steven Robinson. “Vanessa was wearing a bias-cut dress in gray jersey, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a muse,’” Posen recalls. He was even invited to eat lunch with them. “It was a privilege and honor, and also one of my greatest memories.”

It was also around that time that Posen attended his first Met Ball afterparty. (He bought a staff member’s ticket and made his own outfit: a gray velvet suit with emerald green lining.) Nearly two decades later, his own gowns are regularly worn to the Met Ball, an event with increasing significance to those outside the fashion world. That’s much in thanks to Vogue editor in chief and co-chair Anna Wintour, who has used her influence to persuade A-list celebrities to pepper the red carpet.

Yet just because A-list celebrities attend the gala doesn’t make it open to the public like the Oscars, Golden Globes, or other mass events of that caliber. The ball is still veiled in some secrecy, with Wintour famously banning cellphone use, and social media in particular. But it seems the tide’s starting to turn. Last year, preparations for China: Through the Looking Glass, which was co-chaired by Jennifer Lawrence and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, were filmed. A documentary, The First Monday in May, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival a few weeks ago. And this year, for the first time ever, E! News will be hosting live from the red carpet with Giuliana Rancic, Zanna Roberts Rassi, Olivia Culpo, and stylist Johnny Wujek.

Vogues former editor at large, Andr Leon Talley, and the magazines editor in chief, Anna Wintour, at the gala in 1999. (Photo: Getty Images)

In keeping with the forward-thinking theme, 2016’s exhibition, which debuts May 2, is Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Sponsored by Apple and co-chaired by Idris Elba, Jonathan Ive, and Taylor Swift, with Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld, and Miuccia Prada as honorary chairs, the exhibition will focus on the blurred lines between the handmade and the machine-made, or haute couture and prêt-à-porter.

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