One of New York's most talked-about benefits, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute gala, will be held tonight. Here's a look back at the event's various incarnations since 2000, from an English garden party to a superhero's lair.
2009's El Morocco-themed event
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Don Pollard
Held to coincide with the opening of the Costume Institute's exhibit of Jackie Kennedy's White House-era clothes, 2001's ball had a Kennedy theme. Robert Isabell brought in 14-foot topiaries and covered the museum's 22-foot columns with greenery to evoke the White House's Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. The tables featured the same type of candles used in the Kennedy White House, as well as leaf-green and gold silk tablecloths.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 2003, Isabell went for an all-white look as a nod to the Costume Institute's "Goddess" exhibit. He decorated the museum's former restaurant space with white draping and carpeting, hedges of hydrangea, and crab apple blossoms and peonies on the tables.
Photo: BizBash
"Dangerous Liaisons" was the theme in 2004, inspired by the Met's 18th-century fashion and furniture exhibit. Isabell worked with a purple palette as a nod to sponsor Asprey's signature color. The hue was used in the arrivals carpet, exterior lighting, table linens, a 20-foot-tall lilac arrangement and 1,000 votive candles lining the stairs in the Great Hall.
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David Monn was inspired by a garden party at a French chateau when designing 2005's event. Monn put out giant topiaries and covered the tables with sage-colored burlap undercloths and Belgian linen overlays. The bank façade on display was meant to suggest a French chateau, and Monn wrapped the room's 24 concrete columns with cypress and juniper branches.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 2006, the gala had an English garden look that tied to the Met's "AngloMania" exhibit of Britain's posh and punk fashion. Monn set up 70 tables in separate mini-gardens that were hedged by 400 feet of apple trees. The floors were swathed in carpets of spring grass.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Frost Lighting lit the after-party with brightly colored, patterned lighting effects.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The gala had a whimsical, feminine look in 2007 that referenced the museum's exhibit on early 20th-century artist-couturier Paul Poiret. Raul Avila and scenographer Jean-Hugues de Chatillon used fabrics and wall coverings that incorporated patterns designed by Poiret.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Celebrating the museum's spring 2008 exhibition "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy," Nathan Crowley, the production designer from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and Avila evoked Superman's Fortress of Solitude, complete with ice-crystal-like forms in the Temple of Dendur's pool.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Don Pollard
A red carpet flanked by white dogwood trees marked the path from the entrance to the exhibition.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Don Pollard
In 2009, production designer John Myhre and Avila used zebra-print fabric and blue lighting to recreate the legendary New York nightclub El Morocco. As a tribute to the evening's theme, "Model as Muse," Marc Jacobs dressed a six-foot mannequin in white roses and yards of gray and beige fabric in the middle of the Great Hall.
Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Don Pollard
