Anna Wintour on the Met Gala 2024: ‘We've unleashed a lot of confusion’

The gala, a crucial meeting place for cultural, entertainment and fashion figures, presented a particular challenge this year derived from its ‘Sleeping Beauties’ theme, and the ‘Garden of Time’ dress code. ‘This exhibition broke my cardinal rule,’ Wintour said in an interview with Today and Jenna Bush Hager. ‘We came up with the title “Sleeping Beauties,” wonderful and poetic and romantic; but, really, it could be many, many things.’

Traditionally, Met Gala themes seek to inspire guests in their choice of attire, while providing a narrow interpretive range that facilitates visual cohesion at the event. However, ‘Sleeping Beauties’ was described as a ‘wonderful, poetic and romantic’ concept, but susceptible to ‘many, many interpretations’, in Wintour’s own words during an interview with ‘Today’.

Wintour said she decided to adopt ‘Garden of Time’ as an additional dress code after a conversation with Andrew Bolton, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. However, she admitted that her intention did little to help guests, but potentially contributed to the mess. ‘I’m afraid we’ve unleashed a lot of confusion, for which I apologise. I imagine we will see a lot of flowers,’ she said.

According to Wintour, the idea behind ‘Sleeping Beauties’ was to present these masterpieces from different eras, many of which, due to their fragility, are displayed lying behind glass walls. As Anna predicted, the Met Gala 2024 red carpet was filled with floral and greenery-inspired attire, with celebrities and design figures opting for varied and extravagant interpretations that evoked enchanted gardens.