Top Film Directors Re-imagine The Met’s Rooms

The Met Gala’s red carpet is famous for its crazy. It is greater fun to watch than the Oscar’s and The Grammy’s, consequently drawing attention not only to the celebrity, but the fashion powerhouses behind them, equally famous stylists and well, the whatever exhibition follows. 

Bringing ‘the culture’ to the masses is not an easy quest, when you have to compete with Emily in Paris or other half-witted production on Netflix. Netflix is Netflix. This is where cultural establishment falls back on Anna Wintour’s grace, and her genius leading the Met Gala since 1995. 

Whether assigning the transformation of Met’s Period Rooms for “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” to iconic film directors came naturally or with a nod from Wintour herself, it is a brilliant initiative. 

The top directors involve a list of names we cherish and recognise on a whim. Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese and last year’s Oscar winner Chloé Zhao just to mention a few. The 13 period rooms of the museum’s American Wing will display American fashion spanning 18th and 20th century. The exhibition has an interesting focus on designers that didn’t have the chance to be celebrated in general fashion timeline and yet made history, like Fannie Criss Payne, a leading Black modiste. 

Other directors include Radha Blank, Janicza Bravo, Autumn de Wilde, Julie Dash, Tom Ford and Regina King. Each have a room to re-imagine with particular ideas in mind, while the paring was based on their works. For example Sofia Coppola is in charge of the adjacent Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room along with a paneled staircase, naturally, she is currently at work on adapting Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country.

Autumn De Wilde’s room also sparks curiosity. She is working on the Baltimore and Benkard Rooms, dating to the same period as her 2020 feature Emma. Regina King will focus on race and diversity in the Richmond Room, with the works from Black dressmakers. 

“I’m trying to make it an atmosphere, which is the same way I would approach a scene,” Sofia Coppola tells Vogue. 

“In America: An Anthology of Fashion” opens to the public May 7, five days after the May 2 gala.

By Marie Nova