What is Gilded Glamour, Met Gala 2022's theme

The Met Gala 2022 is less than a month away. On Monday 2 May, the steps of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will once again be the red carpet for the most eagerly awaited event of the year, hosting the glittering and fabulous outfits of stars and the elite of the fashion system. After the 2020 camp and the 2021 celebration of American fashion, what will be the dress code of this edition presented by Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Regina King and Lin-Manuel Miranda? "Golden glamour, white-tie". Anna Wintour, honorary co-chairwoman of the gala with Tom Ford, has decided to evoke the grandeur of New York's Gilded Age, the period between 1870 and 1890 when the Big Apple experienced "unprecedented prosperity, cultural change, and industrialization, when both skyscrapers and fortunes seemingly arose overnight".

It was the twenty years of the founding of Vogue US, but also the arrival of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone that made communication instantaneous and brought one of the first mass waves of women into the workplace, or Thomas Edison's light bulb that first illuminated the New York Times building and then the entire city. There was a mood of change, opulence and possibility in the air. At least for the Vanderbilts, Hewitts and Parsons, that elite class nurtured by the industrial boom basked in a modus vivendi of parties, glitz and excess. The men wore top hats and dinner jackets (which arrived in America in 1880); while the women wore clouds of satin, silk and velvet tulle, decorated with an overabundance of fringes, lace, bows and ruffles and combined with fur-lined cloaks and elbow-length gloves. The corset, which emphasized the waistline and highlighted the décolleté, was the real protagonist of women's outfits, together with bell-shaped skirts and pompadour hairstyles. "Colors were rich and deep jewel tones", as Elise Taylor senior living writer for Vogue US recalls.

To find the right fashion inspiration, the Met 2022 A-guest list is preparing to dust off Charles Dana Gibson's illustrations of Gibson Girls, John Singer Sargent's paintings, Edith Wharton's novels The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth or their film version, but also binge watching The Gilded Age, the HBO TV series starring Cynthia Nixon, a full immersion into the American Gilded Age of the late 19th century. How will they translate this sort of period drama moodboard? We imagine that gold and corsets will be the real stars of the red carpet. The declinations seen on the catwalk of these two items are endless, but it would be nice to see John Galliano's couture creations for Dior or those of the 90s by Vivienne Westwood and Christian Lacroix, Alexander McQueen FW10, Schiaparelli Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture, Loewe SS22, Gucci FW20 on the red carpet again. To find out if any of the guests will choose one of these wonderful gowns, the appointment is for the Met Gala 2022 on May 2nd.