The 2023 Met Gala Theme Will Be A Tribute to Fashion Designer Karl Lagerfeld, With The Dress Code 'In Honor Of Karl'

The 2023 Met Gala is coming soon, and this year's theme will pay tribute to the late style icon Karl Lagerfeld! Lagerfeld was a German-born fashion designer, photographer, and artist. From 1983 until his death in 2019, Lagerfeld served as the creative director for Chanel. He's known for his signature white hair, black sunglasses, simple ties, fingerless gloves, and high, white detachable collars. 

Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute's Curator In Charge, says Lagerfeld's sketches will play a big role in the Met Gala. "At its heart, the exhibition will look at the evolution of Karl’s two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional garments," he told Vogue. 

Bolton continues, "And what’s fascinating to have discovered: I always thought that his drawings were very spontaneous and almost impressionistic. But they were in truth extremely precise, almost mathematical. We couldn’t see it because we are not trained, but his premiers knew down to the millimeter what each line meant. It was almost a secret code, a language shared between him and those premiers, that only they could fully decipher."

The Met Gala always falls on the first Monday of May, which is May 1, 2023. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's spring 2023 exhibition, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty, will follow the Met Gala from May 5 until July 16, 2023.  

Lagerfeld is one of the most prolific designers of the 20th and 21st centuries, often being credited with forming the modern luxury fashion industry. “More than anyone I know, he represents the soul of fashion: restless, forward-looking and voraciously attentive to our changing culture,” said Vogue's Anna Wintour at the British Fashion Awards in 2015.

As prominent as Lagerfeld is in the fashion industry, it's surprising to see that the Met Gala is more than willing to honor him, especially since the creative director is known for stating his honest and controversial opinions.

In a 2010 interview with Vice, Lagerfeld expressed his thoughts on LGBTQ rights, suggesting that he was actually against same-sex marriage. “I’m against [gay marriage] for a very simple reason: In the '60s, they all said we had the right to the difference. And now, suddenly, they want a bourgeois life,” he said. “For me, it’s difficult to imagine – one of the papas at work and the other at home with the baby. How would that be for the baby? I don’t know. I see more lesbians married with babies than I see boys married with babies. And I also believe more in the relationship between mother and child than in that between father and child.”

We're happy to see the Met Gala recognize Lagerfeld for his talent and his cutting-edge approach to style, instead of the "cancellable takes" that mainstream media often focuses on.

Love Evie? Sign up for our newsletter and get curated content weekly!