After the red carpet and a visit to the Karl Lagerfeld exhibition, the glamorous guests finally sat down for dinner
Fashion's biggest night out is known for its glamorous red carpet looks and meticulously planned guest list but what goes on behind closed doors is a heavily guarded mystery.
We do know, however, that there is a cocktail hour during which celebrities mingle and catch up, a sit-down dinner, and starry performances to mark the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual exhibition.
Just like the extravagant dinner at the Oscars, the Met Gala menu is no less exquisite. In line with this year's 'Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty' theme, the menu is inspired by the late fashion designer's love for dinner parties, carefully planned by Vogue's special events department along with caterer Olivier Cheng.
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Throughout his lifetime, Lagerfeld loved throwing lavish dinner parties attended by his high profile friends including Chanel's muse Cara Delevingne and Naomi Campbell. For this year's Met Gala, Cheng took a leaf out of Lagerfeld's dinner party book and put together a menu inspired by Lagerfeld's dinner for Paloma Picasso and Rafael Lopez-Sanchez in 1978 after their wedding's civil ceremony, which Yves Saint Laurent and Manolo Blahnik attended.
To take things to the next level, the Met Gala's interior was designed to emulate Lagerfeld's 18th-century Paris apartment's library. The table settings were exactly those of the 1978 dinner with exquisite French linen napkins, varnished hand-painted candelabras, and pink flower bouquets.
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