The Met Gala is perhaps the biggest annual event in the fashion calendar, and, due to its exclusivity, it’s sometimes a bit bamboozling to know what actually goes on.
Alongside its strict guestlist, flabbergasting dress code, and no-phones rule (which, let’s face it, famously gets flouted), it’s sometimes a bit hard to know exactly all of the Behind The Scenes tea.
However, for those of us not lucky enough to have a ticket to the hottest event in town, we’ve managed to piece together a few bits of intel regards what really happens.
Whether it’s the bathroom selfies, the strange food, the intensive queueing, or just the general vibe.
We’ve got you covered.
What actually happens at the Met Gala?
Dinner and food
When we think of the Met Gala, we don’t automatically think Fyre Fest, however, a famous Instagram post shared from the 2021 event kinda gave us those vibes.
During the ceremony, actress Keke Palmer famously gave a behind-the-scenes look at the food, when she broke the rules and shared her meal on Instagram, alongside the caption: ‘This why they don’t show y’all the food.’
She later had to apologise to Marcus Samuelsson, the celebrity chef behind the spread, saying: ‘I just have different taste buds! I love this chef, sorry to this man.’
We have to say, we’ve seen all-you-can-eat salad buffets that look more appealing. Hopefully, it was just a bad photograph.
Another interesting piece of insider knowledge is that after the celebrities have walked the red carpet and have sat down for dinner, they’re grouped during the meal depending on which designers they’re wearing.
Anna Wintour and the Gala’s three other chairs are responsible for ‘hosting’ tables, which each seat approximately 15-20 people.
Surrounding these are smaller tables reserved for each designer at the event, from Chanel to H&M.
Speaking to Insider, a server at the event revealed: ‘I was serving Anna Wintour and Amal Clooney’s table, as well as having the Balmain and Gucci tables.’
Another tidbit of info is that sometimes the caterers serve the food directly onto the plates of the attendees, and guests only have approximately one hour to eat the meal.
Also, unsurprisingly, despite the amount of effort put into the cuisine by the servers and chefs, a lot of the food is leftover on the plates at the end of the event, with celebrities picking and choosing what they eat and what they leave.
Waste not, want not, folks!
Queuing, and more queuing… and a little more
Despite being painfully glamorous, it seems that at times the Met Gala is also painfully tedious.
Who knew?
The 48-year-old singer Roisin Murphy attended the event in 2017, and in a revealing interview, she said that the queue for the Met Gala red carpet is approximately a *mile* long.
Ouch.
Speaking on the Table Manners with Jessie Ware podcast, Roisin said: ‘I did this Met thing a few years ago, I went as a guest for Marni. I didn’t even do the red carpet, they put me with the guy who was the son of Diesel because they own Marni.
‘So I went with this super-nice Italian guy, very shy and we arrived at the red carpet, and there is a queue a mile long. It’s not an ordinary queue, it’s a queue with Beyoncé and Rihanna and all of these people queuing. When you see the pictures, you don’t see the queue, it’s insane.’
Oh well, there goes our illusions shattered into a million pieces.
Leisure, outfit changes and the Green Room
Elsewhere, the stars reportedly have access to a Green Room, in which they’re able to get changed if they so desire.
In 2018, Amal Clooney reportedly wanted to change outfits midway through the ceremony, as she feared that the tinfoil on her Richard Quinn gown would rip.
Some celebrities even get their own greenrooms, which was reportedly the case for Madonna. Speaking to Insider, a server called Mike Harman said: ‘Madonna wasn’t at the dinner because she was a surprise guest of the Gala, and no one knew until she was revealed after the dinner, so she had her own greenroom.’
Of course, the event is held in an art gallery, New York’s sprawling Metropolitan Museum of Art, which means that some of the guests will take a bit of time to have a peek at the works on display.
Bit of culture with your haute couture, anyone?
Bathroom selfies
The Met Gala isn’t the Met Gala without the selfies.
In 2021, bathroom selfies were rife – with some absolutely iconic offerings. In one, Lil Nas X, clad in golden Versace armour, snapped a selfie with some of the evening’s coolest guests including, Erykah Badu, Jack Harlow, Lil Wayne, and Pete Davidson.
Likewise, that year, we got a little *too* much behind the scenes info, when Troye Sivan shared a photo of his dress-clad back and platform heels as he used the urinal, and it was captured by Tom Daley. History made.
The years of 2016 and 2017 were also both fruitful when it came to bathroom selfies, with model and fashion mogul Alexa Chung sharing an ever-so-chic shot of herself in the bathroom alongside model pal Poppy Delevigne with a cheeky photobomb from Ellie Fanning.
Then, in 2021, Kylie Jenner shared *that* group selfie to end all group selfies, with a group shot showing her with her sisters Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner, A$AP Rocky, Brie Larson, Elizabeth Chambers, Ashton Sanders, Luka Sabbat, Paris Jackson, Sean Combs, Lily Aldridge, Slick Woods, and more.
Oh, how the other half lives.
What theme is the 2022 Met Gala, when is it and how can I watch it?
This year’s theme is In America: An Anthology of Fashion, which, according to Vogue, centres on ‘tenets of American style’ throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and celebrates the ‘anonymous and unsung heroes of US design.’
Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Lin-Manuel Miranda will serve as co-chairs of the 2022 Met Gala. Designer Tom Ford, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri, and Anna Wintour will remain as honorary co-chairs.
Vogue will once again live stream the Met Gala red carpet on its website and across the publication’s social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook starting at 6pm ET.
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