Late Designer Karl Lagerfeld to be Honored at 2023 Met Gala as Theme is Revealed

By:  Serach Nissim

The theme for the much-anticipated 2023 Met Gala has been revealed.

As reported by the NY Post, the Met gala will entail an exhibition of works by legendary late designer Karl Lagerfeld.  Known as the fashion industry’s hottest night, the benefit will take place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday May 1, 2023.  The Met’s Costume Institute will present “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty”.  In a recent press release, the Met wrote that the gala will consist of about 150 designs which “explore the artistic methodology and stylistic vocabulary of Karl Lagerfeld’s designs through recurring themes across more than 65 years, from the 1950s to his final collection in 2019.”

Pieces from Lagerfeld’s long tenure working as creative director for Fendi, Chloé and Chanel will be displayed.  His creations from his namesake label will also be displayed, as well as his work for Balmain and Patou.  There will also be displays of sketches by the German designer, who passed away at age 85 in February 2019 in Paris.  “Every single design in his life was a sketch,” current head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Andrew Bolton told CNN. “And when I saw the drawings, I thought, ‘These are so charming, so whimsical, so impressionistic.’”  “But what I didn’t realize was that they contained really precise information — about a shoulder line or the length of a sleeve. And his staff knew exactly what this line meant or what that dot meant, and they could decode it,” Bolton said in the recent interview.

The Lagerfeld exhibition will be open from May through mid-July 2023. The swanky Met Gala, however, will be just one unforgettable evening– bringing together a rich bash, celebrities, A-list designers and fashion.  Last year, hosts and co-chairs for the Met Gala included stars Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Regina King and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The 2022 theme, which was delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, encompassed the idea of “Gilded Glamour”.  The 2022 Gala, held the first Monday in May, had raised a record $17.4 million for the self-funding Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, per the Associated Press.  The gala had some 400 guests —featuring some of the most celebrated names in fashion, entertainment, and sports.  Tickets cost $35,000 each, by invitation only, with tables going for $200,000 to $300,000, as per the NY Times.

Vogue Magazine noted that Lagerfeld would not have wanted just a display—that the fashion icon often said that fashion didn’t belong in a museum, but was meant for wearing.  “Karl never tired of telling me that fashion did not belong in a museum,” Bolton, told the magazine. “When we worked on the Chanel showtogether, he was incredibly generous in what he lent, but he was completely disinterested in the exhibition itself! He would say ‘fashion is not art — fashion belongs on the street, on women’s bodies, on men’s bodies.’”