The 2024 met gala theme is deeper than flowers for spring
I’ve been watching the Met Gala red carpet live streams, interviews, and reviews of the looks for several years now. My mom thinks this hobby is useless for someone like me, living in Africa. But the Met Gala is more than just celebrities taking steps into the unknown; it’s deeper than dolling up to walk a red carpet. The Met Gala is the Super Bowl of fashion, and I love fashion — it keeps me alive. I’ll continue to be interested in the Met Gala despite my mom’s advice. I’ll keep doing it even if some guests don’t want to take risks and give us something to reference for a lifetime.
This year’s Met Gala theme is “The Garden of Time,” inspired by a short story of the same name by J.G. Ballard. The exhibition theme, announced earlier, is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” The annual Met Gala serves as a fundraiser for the exhibit at the Met Museum, which will be open to the public shortly after the first Monday of May’s evening.
When I first heard about the exhibition theme, I thought, “Did Kim K inspire it?” She wore that ONE infamous Marilyn Monroe dress, sparking controversy, with most being appalled by her choice. However, I wasn’t; I really enjoyed the look and the moment. It was historical and the epitome of art performance. I was thrilled when the exhibition theme was announced because who wouldn’t want to see garments and gowns that are rarely seen? Who wouldn’t want a recreation, whether through a hologram or by trying to guess how it was created, like what’s done with the construction of La Sagrada Família? I know I do.
The dress code for the night was announced afterward. I was disappointed when I heard about it. I couldn’t bring myself to visualize a fun and risky red carpet because I know for a fact that most guests will just follow the theme literally and interpret it shallowly. Like, “Go girl, give us nothing.” Yup, florals would be on theme, but so does every fashionable girl’s summer outfit this year. Flowers took over the runway A whole YEAR AGO, so if guests would rely on just showcasing the beauty and feminine side of flowers, then that would be very disappointing but kind of on theme.
My Interpretation of the Garden of Time by J.G Ballard
The theme is inspired by a story of the same name. I’ve been chronically online lately, feeling like I’m going insane, and the brain rot is crazy. The story is literally only 6 pages long, but I needed a subway surfer in the background to focus on it. It’s short but very condensed in detail. I loved reading it and I got philosophical about it so here is my main understanding of it because the dress code is inspired by it, and we need to understand it together:
The story is about a couple, a count and his wife, living lavishly in a beautiful Palladian villa, immersed in their own little yet big world, intoxicated by the pleasures that their art and belongings offer. One evening, on his usual walk, the count noticed an advancing mob in the far horizon moving towards the villa. He then picked a time flower in hopes of stretching the serene moments before the sunset. It worked; the mob would retrieve a little back each time a flower ceased. The count kept on picking flowers, although the couple “knew that the garden was dying.” The flowers were magical, but they needed time to grow like any normal one does. On the last evening, the wife picked the last remaining time flower. The mob “momentarily receded.” The couple held hands, watching the mob take over the villa, and then shortly after they became inanimate stone statues. The mob’s massive impact shaking the villa didn’t break the frozen stone statues because of the barbed foliage that surrounded and ‘protected’ them. The mob then “pressed through the house towards the open doors on the north side.” A short while after, in the last moments of the sunset, “a single ray of light glanced through a shattered cornice and struck the rose” in the countess’s delicate hands, “reflected off the whorl of petals onto the statues, lighting up the grey stone so that for a fleeting moment it was indistinguishable from the long-vanished flesh of the statues’ originals.”
While reading, I marked every reference to time, space, and laws of physics in green, highlighted every detail about fauna and the garden in red, and also highlighted every instance of human behavior in the context of time and the garden in brown. I used a lot of green, perhaps went overboard with brown because I like to get philosophical about how humans act even in the simplest forms. The red highlighted the description of the beauty of the villa, the garden, and the set where the count and his wife lived. Towards the end, the red would describe the destruction which was regarded and narrated as bad.
For the garden part, my takeaway from this short story is that nature or the garden exists around us for all of our lives. It might seem “remote” or maybe “dull,” or it can seem “illuminated” and “brighter” at times. It’s all in our perception of it because we’re the only species that gets to talk, paint, sing about the garden or nature. But it will exist regardless, in the macro, whether it appears dull or bright, and in the micro, whether it appears simple or detailed.
The count might have felt that the distant “plain was always dull and remote” and that “in the garden, the air seemed brighter, the sun warmer.” That’s just his perception in his sheltered abode; the air and sun are the same everywhere and every time. They will continue being regardless of the count’s or the mob’s perception. Nature exists with all of its detailed details; it’s alive and is dying many times and in many ways every split second. It has its own time trajectory; we just have the privilege to observe it and describe it through our angle and level of understanding. Nature is not beautiful nor ugly; nature and the garden and the flowers are just nature, garden, and flowers.
Nature exists in infinite ways; we can only reference, celebrate, protect, destroy, and be inspired by it in finite and limited ways because we are humans with a time deadline unlike it. The flowers, though fragile in nature, helped the couple immensely. Flowers are a symbol of power and resilience in many historical instances.
For the time part, humans like to stretch time; we are obsessed with the concept, hence why the fantasy about freezing our bodies to come back again, the endless trials of inventing a time machine, the fated need of writing on walls of caves, painting, inventing cameras, coming up with conservation techniques, all for stretching the joy of a given abrupt moment, all for wanting to revisit a set. Physics is built around the laws of time; simple phenomenons like expansion and contraction require time to manifest.
The count noticing the mob required time, him describing the mob in detail required time, him drawing the comparison between the mob’s detail and a Goya landscape required time. The Goya landscape itself required time to be painted, to be varnished, to oxidize. There are many words that describe time in the story, almost too many, like pace, forward, size, appearing, visible. The count’s actions’ progress was based on his personal calculations; whatever he did, he couldn’t stop and freeze time. He could only save some time with the flowers, but the sun was still setting, the flowers were still growing, the mob was still advancing. Regardless, he could only control some of his time. A different character might react slower or faster than Count Axel did; all is about personal perception.
Time can only be reversed, conserved, or changed in very limited ways. We don’t need the fictional time flowers to stretch it; conserving art, inventing the camera, and all sorts of time bending attempts by humans are enough to do so but in a very limited capacity, just like the disappearing time flowers with each consumption. Humans tend to solve current issues by consuming things at a faster pace. We do it with our natural resources; our strive for stretching the comfort that we built in the 21st century made us consume our assets rapidly, faster than the time they need to come back. Will we watch our end like the couple did? If he strategized better and left the palace sooner without making the time flowers go extinct, maybe he would’ve survived. But can humans make a big change in the course of fated events? or will the cycle take place regardless of our efforts to reverse it? The vicious cycle of creation and destruction is built around the laws of time. Maybe all attempts to reverse that are in vain.
For the human behavior part, the very comfortable life of the couple influenced their behavior, duh, we are a reflection of our environment after all. So did the environment of the angry mob. The count’s attitude towards the danger of the mob was a reflection of his arts and his belongings, which were a lot. Had he not been a count, would he have turned to time flowers to solve the problem? Had he lived not too far from people, would he describe the mob differently? His behavior and collected attitude were fitting to him.
We need destruction to appreciate creation. Creation requires destruction (chopping trees, extracting color…), and destruction requires creation (the rise of cults, inventing of guns…). This cycle won’t be disrupted; what we can change is our behavior towards it, and it all relies on our level of consciousness. Had the count walked outside his high-walled villa and interacted with ‘commoners,’ had he observed the remote and dull plain better, maybe he would’ve avoided destruction. Had the mob observed life and nature, had they seen the warmth and joy of the villa’s garden, had they seen the couple’s love and their passion for arts, maybe the mob would’ve preserved the creation.
The mob was united despite their confused steps; they were mediocre yet powerful. The count and his wife kept distracting themselves from the up-and-coming phase of destruction; they were ‘cool’ about it. Humans tend to do that; we tend to just accept that times are changing, and we do nothing about it. That’s why times change actually; there needs to be a natural reset from time to time for us to appreciate what we have when we get too consumed by it, like the case of being entertained 24/7 for the couple and like the case of being angry in confusion for countless evenings for the mob. We need to be aware of how fast time changes; we can’t just accept it; accept the end and decay. We need to notice it sooner, be around it, not shelter ourselves in high-walled villas.
These were my personal takeaways from the story, now what can all of this mean in the context of fashion?
The Garden of Time in the Context of Fashion
On the 6th of May, we might honor nature, flowers, elements of a garden; these elemnts might seem delicate and fragile, but they can protect you. They might seem permanent and dull because we get used to them, but they are far more interesting than we might think; actually, we expire without them.
We might honor time: how we fantasize about stretching it, about reversing it, but all in vain or for a very limited fraction. We need to use our natural assets carefully because they cease at one point or another. We can’t keep on ignoring the big elephant in the room.
We might warn about the reality of climate change and the state of our earth; time is working against us. We can’t keep on picking time flowers from the comfort of our villas; the flowers end, and the mob is approaching. We have to strategize better.
We might visualize during the gala the fact that there is an endless cycle of destruction and creation, which might appear pessimistic. We fantasize about permanent creation, but that’s unrealistic; Humans love to destroy, and that’s good because how would we know the sweet taste of creation without the angry mob? People ask artists to give us beams of hope all the time, but many artists will turn down these requests, because if you get deep in observing, you might conclude that all good is in vain because destruction will inevitably happen next.
We might pay homage to art and history conservators, who sometimes had to be killed protecting and stretching the time of how many generations would enjoy looking at the art. The likes of Khaled al-Asaad could be honored during the night.
We can see beauty in destruction; some might prefer the comfort and abundance of the creation phase, but destruction birthed most artists and art eras. Preferring only the creation is lazy and halfway missing the point. Creation and destruction need each other to exist, and both serve as a source of inspiration.
We can stretch the time of dying garment-making traditions and techniques by wearing them during the event.
We can also remember and recreate forgotten or fragile gowns.
We can also celebrate beautiful pieces before they dissolve.
We can also try to imagine how modern attire would look after some decades, how natural fabrics and/or plastic fabrics would biodegrade eventually, how we need to enjoy some handmade techniques before they become forgotten. What our world and clothes would look like when certain species go extinct.
Red Carpet Fashion Predictions
Of course, the literal play into the words: garden, time, sleeping…
For that, we can see realistic looks that mimic elements of the garden, the flowers, the lake, the stone statues, the sun, the foliage, clocks, physics, sleeping… Designers have long been inspired by nature, including flowers in their work. Wearing just any look that features flowers would be lazy, but wearing iconic history-making looks that feature flowers in a more thoughtful way in the context of Ballard’s story would be very much appreciated.
The imagination or the factual representation of how time impacts clothes and how some of our modern attire can wither. It would be so beautiful to see molding torn gowns…
Pulling out archival looks would be a blessing to fashionphiles like me. I want to see Dior, a lot of it.
Maybe recycling some old looks, preloved fashion, and extending the time of our garments? Since it’s the new wave already.
We might see some looks warning us about climate change; that’s what I took away from the short story personally.
What I Would Wear If I Was Invited
Option number 1:
A gown that has a written message, think of the iconic Viktor & Rolf slogan gowns. I would have a haunting message about how we don’t have as much time as we think to stop running dry our resources. The message would be framed by beautiful flowers perhaps, recreating the description of time flowers — the haunting message would be bordered by beautiful flowers to distract us from the real danger, just like how the couple was doing in the story.
Option number 2:
If I were an established celebrity with some iconic red carpet looks, I would recreate one of them with a twist: I’ll let you see how they will biodegrade or how they would look after my death. I would try to romanticize the jinxing thought of seeing myself decompose. For example, if I were Lady Gaga, I’ll pull up to the Met wearing a biodegrading version of the meat dress with rotting meat, perhaps earthworms or whatever around it. If I were JLo, I’ll pull up to the Met with a torn and biodegrading version of the iconic green Versace dress. or I will show up in a very real cosplay of a dead icon or an imagination of how would the long gone icons dress in a red carpet event of the 21st century, just like how the statues “come back to life” for a fleeting moment through a single ray.
Option number 3:
Portray the power of flowers in a look, the symbolism we associate with them, how we used them to revolt and to live…
Option number 4:
Visualize the time, add an element of physics in the creation of the gown, maybe have multiple clocks on my body with different time zones?
Option number 5:
Dress like the count and his wife with my plus one.
I personally cannot wait to watch the live stream of the event, to read about the looks, and to learn new fashion facts like I always do every Met Gala. I’m super excited for it; I want to see raw and risky looks, enough with the commercial saturation of this industry. I will be reviewing the looks on my YouTube channel and perhaps on here. Thank you so much for reading this post written with so much passion for fashion.
With love,
Mariam.
