The annual Met Gala mounted by the Costume Department of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the real social highlights for all the most famous faces in fashion and culture. It is an extravagent and outrageous event that because of its crazy excesses, is the hottest ticket in town for fashion designers, their muses, and the city’s glitterati. In 2015 the theme for the Gala and the Exhibition it launched was ‘China Through The Looking Glass’ and this documentary by filmmaker Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times) went behind the scenes to film the whole Gala from it’s conception right through to its birth.
The Gala is helmed by some very powerful Brits led by Anna Wintour the legendary Editor in Chief at Vogue. Wintour is not only a Trustee of the Met, but the Costume Department’s Center was recently named after her. Although Andrew Bolton the Department’s Curator was the rather inspired main hands-on Exhibition creator, Wintour was the very aggressive force who ensured that it all got done and in exactly the way she wanted it. They made a good pair as both of them are obsessive detailed micr0-managers, but unlike Bolton, Wintour has absolutely no time at all for being tactful or polite. She corrected one interviewer who called her out on her abrasive manner with ‘I’m decisive, but if that comes over as intimidating, then I am sorry’. Trust me, she is not. Sorry that is.
The first part of the documentary is tedious to the point of being boring when the camera trails them to events like the whole team at Press Conferences, and even following them to the one in China. Bolton’s interview with designer John Galliano was also painful to watch. Partly because of his quiet demure style, but also the fact that the major cosmetic surgery that Galliano has had made him look uncomfortably weird.
As Rossi’s camera captured moments of disquiet in the planning of the Exhibition when the Museum’s Asian Department were trying their best to play down their obvious horror about being coerced into co-operation with the Costume Department who they implied was so beneath them, you get the distinct impression that the real disagreements and inter-department wrangling were not being filmed, which is such a pity. Wintour, when focusing on the Gala aspect, was also unusually circumspect with what she said on camera, probably still spoiling from the fact that she came over so negatively and almost harridan like in The September Issue the recent documentary on Vogue.
What is impressive though is the team of experts that are added to the team which include two award winning film directors Baz Luhrmann and Wong Kai Wei both known for their highly stylized work. Creating the perfect style and ambiance is crucial too them, but there is an extraordinary meeting with the team and Wintour in her rather grand New York house which strikes you as rather over-the-top and oddly something befitting the likes of The Real Housewives of Marie Antoinette’s Court!
The documentary eventually picks up some pace in the final 
days before the big Event when Wintour is overseeing the seating plan dissing celebrities who are consigned to the outer edge, and then surprisingly insisting that the table allocated to the bosses of the H & M stores is given a better position. It is a sharp reminder that the $125 million raised for the Museum is not from mere ticket sales, but actually from the major support of commercial sponsors. Everything is rather a panic at the last minute when there are many dramas like the fact that Rihanna may not appear after all because she has decided that her $200K fee to appear at this Charity event is not enough.
If that seems an awful lot of money, it does in fact almost pale into insignificance with other items of transforming the Met into whatever Ms Wintour demands. Like the 250,000 white roses used to decorate the stunning giant vase in the entrance.
The Gala itself makes the Oscar Red Carpet look like an also-ran with it’s coterie of ‘A’ and very definite ‘B’ list celebrities so glamorously decked out in their glorious designer clothing. Most of them however like George Clooney, have the good sense to scoot up the grand staircase quick enough to avoid the attention of the rather annoying and obnoxious former Vogue editor André Leon Talley who is demanding they stop and chat.
The real perk of the evening for these guests …. and the documentary itself…is to be able to have a private view of the stunning exhibition with very few other people present, and then you immediately appreciate why all this fuss was actually really worthwhile after all. Bolton had been obsessed with the fact that all the exhibitions he had curated in the past few years had been unfavorably compared to the mega-success of the Alexander McQueen ‘Savage Beauty’ Show. He needn’t have worried as by the time this Exhibition closed in a couple of months time it has 800,000 visitors, and is his biggest success by far.
The movie is a must-see for any fashionistas, and anybody else who may have a penchant for seeing some of fashion and film’s leading royalty in such an elegant setting being entertained by Rihanna who oddly chose to sing one of her gangsta songs. It almost made Miss Wintour blush.
Labels: 2016, documentary, fashion
