Written by Oscar Holland, CNN
Singer Dua Lipa, tennis star Roger Federer and actors Penelope Cruz and Michaela Coel will join Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Anna Wintour as co-chairs of the 2023 Met Gala.
The celebrity quartet was introduced Wednesday by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose Costume Institute is the beneficiary of the exclusive fundraiser.
The annual event, taking place on May 1, coincides with a major new exhibition on the life and work of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 at age 85. Attendees will be asked to dress in the motto “In Honor of Karl.”
The four co-chairs, all of whom have attended the fundraiser in recent years, took to social media Wednesday to acknowledge the announcement. Federer wrote on Instagram that he was “very excited” to join “dear friend of his” Wintour at the event. Cruz, who walked the runway in Lagerfeld’s latest Chanel show, meanwhile posted the news along with the caption “Karl” and a heart emoji.
This year will mark one of the few times since Wintour began overseeing the event in the mid-1990s that there are no fashion designers among the chairpersons. While nominations in the past two years have come from other industries (the previous lineup included Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Regina King), American designer Tom Ford has served as honorary chair in both 2021 and 2021. 2022.
Anna Wintour arrives for last year’s Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 2, 2022. Credit: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
With tickets costing more than $30,000 per person, the invitation-only gala is a major source of funding for the Costume Institute. In 2019, he raised $15 million for the museum, according to the New York Times.
Open from early May to mid-July, the event’s accompanying exhibition, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” will bring together some 150 designs that “explore the designer’s stylistic language.” Items on display will include creations from his time as creative director of Fendi, Chloé and Chanel, as well as pieces from his Balmain and Patou stints and designs from his namesake label.
Speaking to CNN last fall, when the 2023 theme was first announced, Costume Institute chief curator Andrew Bolton said the late Lagerfeld “would have hated a retrospective” but that the show will be more like to an “essay” about his work.
The last two galas, held eight months apart amid disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, were themed around American fashion: “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” in 2021, and the Last year “Gilded Glamor and White Tie.”
