The 2023 Met Gala took place yesterday May 1st. The Met Gala takes place every first Monday in May and is a fundraising gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s costume exhibit. The guests usually persist of designers, athletes, musicians, and other famous people. The red carpet for this event is considered “the Super Bowl of Fashion”. Every year a theme is announced and guests are asked to dress for this theme. Most guests work with designers to find the perfect most beautiful outfits for the theme.
This year’s theme was entitled Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty. Guests were encouraged to wear their favorite Lagerfeld design or outfits inspired by him and his work. Lagerfeld passed away in 2019 and this theme has been pushed back to allow for the most respect. Karl Lagerfeld was a German fashion designer. He was best known for his work witht the brand Chanel as well as his brand Chloe and a brief time with Fendi. During his life, he was one of the most known fashion designers in the world. The Met Gala has honored other deceased designers in the past so it was only right they honored Karl as well.
Once this theme was announced many people took to social media with great disappointment. Actress Jameela Jamil took to Instagram to state that although he was an influential person in fashion but evilly used his platform and she did not want to support that. A Twitter fashion group that usually covers the gala stated that would not be covering it this year due to the theme. They stated many people on their staff are people who Karl openly disliked.
Why is everyone so upset? Karl Lagerfeld has been openly racist, homophobic, and fatphobic. Karl was very open about how he felt one must be skinny to be pretty. He has said outrageous statements like calling Adele “a little heavy” or saying Coco Chanel was not ugly enough to be a feminist. Lagerfeld also stated how he does not believe in body positivity and thinks it is stupid. He even once stated that Fashion is the healthiest motivation to lose weight.
During the #metoo movement several of Lagerfeld’s models came out and states that he has made sexual comments and advances toward them. Karl denied any of these claims and stated that he was tired of this movement. He even went as far as to state that it was interesting how these women waited 20 years to say anything and that if women didn’t want their clothing tugged at they should not become models.
Throughout his career, Karl also had many issues with race. In 2010 Lagerfeld put one of his blonde and white models in blackface and an afro wig as a “throwback to minstrel shows”. He also has been openly anti-immigrant bashing former chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel for opening German borders. In an interview for a french tv show, Lagerfeld states “One cannot – even if there are decades between them – kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place,” “I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said: ‘The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust.’”
Although Lagerfeld had nothing nice to say about many different groups of people. No one openly stated they are not going to attend the Gala due to the theme. This year’s Met Gala had around 600 people in attendance and everyone spent the night admiring the work of Lagerfeld.
