BURO.Bulletin: And The Met Gala 2020 Theme Is…

Rihanna's ridiculously long yellow drapery that inspired a thousand memes (two words: pizza dress), Madonna’s Pope makeover and Billy Porter going full on Egyptian pharaoh. From the sublime to the ridiculous, fashion’s biggest night out, The Met Gala, is what red-carpet dreams are made out of. Each year, the event has a theme. BURO.’s highlights: ‘Heavenly Bodies’ (2018), ‘Manus x Machin’a (2016) and ‘Punk: Chaos to Couture’ (2013).

MADONNA at the 2018 met gala | shutterstock

Next year’s theme? Drumroll, please… ‘About Time: Fashion and Duration’.

In October, Anna Wintour, chair of the Met Gala teased:" I'll just give you a clue, the dress code will be 'timeless.' And that's all I can say, or the museum will excommunicate me." According to Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute at The Met, the muse will be literary icon Virginia Woolf. More specifically, the 1992 film Orlando, starring Tilda Swinton, which was based on Woolf’s novel of the same name.

“There’s a wonderful scene,” Bolton said, “in which Swinton enters the maze in an 18th century woman’s robe à la Francaise, and as she runs through it her clothes change to mid-19th century dress, and she re-emerges in 1850s England. That’s where the original idea came from.”

In keeping with the theme, The Met announced the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition, About Time: Fashion and Duration, will be a “reimagining of fashion history that’s fragmented, discontinuous, and heterogeneous,” featuring 160 pieces of women's clothing from 1870 to 2020. 2020 is also a milestone year for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the New York institution celebrates its 150th birthday.

Okay, now for a quick game of Mystic Meg. Anyone hedging their bets someone will come dressed as Marty McFly?

The Met Gala takes place on Monday May 4th in 2020 and ‘About Time: Fashion and Duration’ exhibition will be on view at the Costume Institute from May 7th until September 7th, 2020