The Met Gala Has Been Indefinitely Postponed

After much speculation over whether or not the Met’s annual fashion gala would, in fact, take place despite the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve received the final word: The 2020 Met Gala is postponed indefinitely. 

Prior to today’s announcement, events and destinations all over the world — including the Louvre, Coachella, Disneyland, Broadway, and more — have either been called off or closed down in an effort to slow down the global pandemic. But despite the Met itself closing its Fifth Avenue doors last Thursday, we weren’t quite convinced that the Met Gala would follow suit. It is, after all, an Anna Wintour-led event, and like Vogue’s editor-in-chief, it seemed indomitable. Alas, with CNN putting the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide at 6,500 and New York City’s number of cases surging from 729 to 950 since Sunday, the decision to postpone had to be made.

According to Vogue, the final call came down to New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo’s announcement this morning that no gatherings with over 50 people in attendance were to take place for the next eight weeks. Governors from New Jersey and Connecticut made the same decision. The Met decided, according to a museum spokesperson, that "in deference to this guidance, all programs and events through May 15 will be canceled or postponed.” And since the Gala famously takes every year on the First Monday in May — this year’s engagement was set to take place on the 4th of the month — it too had to be pushed.

This year’s exhibition, “About Time: Fashion and Duration,” which was to be hosted by Louis Vuitton’s creative director of womenswear Nicolas Ghesquière, alongside  Emma Stone, Meryl Streep, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and, of course, Anna Wintour, was expected to be one for the record books, even after 2019’s very over-the-top camp theme. For now, though, we’re holding out hope that once the threat of coronavirus has been terminated, we’ll still get the chance to see how this year’s theme is brought to life. 

While we wait, Anna Wintour herself gave us one thing to look forward to: a sneak peek of the About Time exhibition in Vogue’s May issue. Meet you at the newsstands at the end of April?