It was announced that the theme of next year’s annual Met Gala
It was announced that the theme of next year’s annual Met Gala will be Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film, and Fashion.
According to Vogue.com, the theme ‘will primarily examine how eastward-looking Westerners have understood, misunderstood, and appropriated Chinese culture’.
It was also revealed that Jennifer Lawrence will co-host the event at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, alongside Hong Kong-based textile tycoon Silas Chou.
Co-chairing the gala will be Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng, Chinese actress Gong Li and Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
It is reported that much of the focus will be on Chinese opera, with a display of pieces from John Galliano’s spring 2003 Christian Dior couture show, which was inspired by the late great opera singer Mei Lanfang.
The event and exhibition will ‘[draw] on more than a hundred couture and avant-garde samplings from designers as varied as Alexander McQueen and Laurence Xu,’ according to Vogue.
‘From the earliest period of European contact with China in the 16th century, the West has been enchanted with enigmatic objects and imagery from the East, providing inspiration for fashion designers from Paul Poiret to Yves Saint Laurent, whose fashions are infused at every turn with fantasy, romance, and nostalgia,’ Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s, said in a release.
‘In an intricate process of translation and mistranslation similar to a game of “Telephone” – which the British call “Chinese Whispers” – designers conjoin disparate stylistic references into a fantastic pastiche of Chinese aesthetic and culture traditions.’
I guess it is safe to say that Liu Wen will be attending?!!