The Gala, a 77-year-old tent pole of Haute Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 has been body swapped into a hollow marketing circus; a leadenly commercialised, three-ring affair where brand synergies rule and break through Netflix series are shoved down the red carpet to radiate such affected nonchalance it\u2019s a choking hazard. <\/p>\n
The Gala used to be a society event but is now just a branding activation writ grossly large. <\/p>\n
Look, this is the Met we are talking about not Marx; the Gala has never been a night for the great unwashed and the air inside the museum has always been the most socially rarefied going outside the Royal Enclosure at Ascot or Joan Collins\u2019 Table at Club 55. But it also used to be a glorious one-night-only cocktail of human taste, genuine Personalities, bon vivants and the sorts who can identify a blazer from Tom Ford\u2019s legendary \u201896 Gucci collection at 20 paces and through the impenetrable fug of Kate Moss\u2019 ciggie smoke. <\/p>\n
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What used to be an event that an invitation to signalled Making It is now nothing but a vast, vast commercial military operation, where each celebrity\u2019s look is solely designed to be clipped and sliced and diced for social media. Forget couture, all the Met Gala is now is a content sausage factory and just another station of the cross on the PR roster. (The others; The Oscars, Cannes and Derek Blasberg\u2019s Instagram.) <\/p>\n
At this year\u2019s Gala I doubt there was a single celebrity guest who had actually chosen so much as their underpants themselves. Every dress would have been focus grouped and A\/B tested to exhaustion; there would have been long sleepless nights in marketing departments and 5.17am emails and such extensive negotiations they should probably send a delegation from Chanel or similar to sort out the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
Then guests, mostly the women, are judged and divvied onto best and worst dresses lists, like Holsteins going through a Gympie stock yard but with more tulle.<\/p>\n
Not helping the general feeling of this year\u2019s Gala being a tipping point, this formally great fashion feast day jumping the shark, came when Lauren Sanchez Bezos made her grand entrance, the ultimate triumph of cheque book fame. <\/p>\n
If only the theme had been Filthy Lucre. <\/p>\n