met gala monday misses the mark
By Nneoma Iloeje
Met Gala Monday, we know it, we love it. Organized by Anna Wintour, on the first Monday of May, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art becomes home to countless celebrities and designers all there to celebrate fashion. However, what is deemed the biggest night in fashion has been the subject of controversy in the past few days.
On October 3rd, in the midst of Paris Fashion Week, it was announced that the 2023 Met Gala theme would be “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty”, making it the third time the Met Gala has gone with a designer based theme. While the announcement was met with much excitement, it was met with even more backlash. What was meant to be an iconic theme with the intention of honoring the late designer quickly turned into a controversial (and maybe even tone deaf) choice.
Yes, it’s undeniable that Lagerfeld was a pioneer in his career and held immense talent. Yes, he has forever cemented his legacy as one of the most prolific designers of his time. And yes, his designs and shows were incredibly imaginative and beautiful. However, all of this does not excuse who Lagerfeld is as a person.
Last week’s announcement did more to remind the public of all of Lagerfeld’s distasteful comments and beliefs that he has vocalized over the years than of his success as a fashion designer. Tiktokers, celebrities, and twitter users alike have all taken to their respective social media platforms to express their disapproval of the upcoming Met Gala Theme. Actress Jamila Jameel took to instagram to publicize everything wrong with Karl Lagerfeld and his beliefs.
“Why is THIS who we celebrate when there are so many AMAZING designers out there who aren't bigoted white men? What happened to everyone's principles and ‘advocacy,” Jameel said in the caption of her instagram post which consisted of screenshots of articles containing evidence of harmful statements that Karl Lagerfeld has said. “You don't get to stand for justice in these areas, and then attend the celebration of someone who reveled in his own public disdain for marginalized people.”
Throughout his lifespan Lagerfeld has been accused countless times of being fatphobic, sexist, islamaphobic, antisemitic, homophobic (even though he himself is a gay man) and just plain hateful. Lagerfeld infamously told Focus Magazine in 2009 that, quote, “No one wants to see curvy women.” He was a very big advocate for keeping models dangerously skinny at sizes 0-2, which is not a healthy or sustainable weight for anybody. Shameless in his beliefs he called supermodel Heidi Klum “too heavy”. A rather disgusting thing to say about anybody whether they are a model or not. The idea that models have to remain life threateningly thin in order to be acceptable for the runway is an extremely harmful rhetoric and it's even more harmful when a huge figure in the fashion world like Lagerfeld actively promoted it.
Lagerfeld didn’t just stop at the fatphobia. He made critical comments about the #MeToo movement and the sexual misconduct within the fashion industry, saying, “If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent." Even worse, he accused the surge of women coming forward with their sexual assault stories of “taking 20 years to remember what happened” and that he was, “fed up with it.”
While it would be too much to delve into all the less than savory comments that this one man had made, the questions that come to mind are: What business does the Met Gala have promoting this man in this day and age, and is the fashion industry too lenient in choosing the problematic men they continue to give platforms to?
Time and time again, we’ve seen awful people like John Galliano, the founders and creative directors of Dolce & Gabbana, Alexander Wang, and several others be in the midst of a horrible controversy and then seemingly bounce back like nothing ever happened. Alexander Wang specifically, who was accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct, has already had a comeback runway show and has been promoted by the Kardashians several times since. Galliano, who drunkenly screamed belligerent and inflammatory racist and antisemitic comments several times to innocent bystanders in Paris, has been the creative director of Maison Margiela since 2014.
Perhaps whoever planned for this theme did not do their research on the designer thoroughly. In this current time period, nobody wants to give more air time to people who promote such toxic and damaging beliefs. While the upcoming designs are sure to be amazing, it is just unfortunate that the looks have to be in honor of somebody with such harmful views. In the Kanye situation, Vogue took action and removed Kanye’s picture from the Balenciaga Runway show in addition to removing any Yeezy engineered by Gap images as well. It even went so far as to defend the journalist that Kanye publicly bullied on his instagram. Clearly the magazine is no stranger to de-platforming hateful artists, so what is the difference in reference to Lagerfeld? It’s impossible to ignore the hypocrisy in only taking measures against Kanye while still ignoring the Lagerfeld theme controversy. To the Met Gala theme planning committee, if you were looking for an iconic designer to honor that would please everyone, Thierry Mugler is right there.