At the Met Gala, a Pre-Raphaelite-Inspired Carpet Welcomes Guests

When guests arrive at this year’s Met Gala in celebration of “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” they will be greeted not with a red carpet, but with an off-white carpet trimmed at the edges with a sprinkling of airbrushed green foliage. “We were inspired by the idea of the museum transforming into an enchanted forest at dusk and looked to the pre-Raphelites for inspiration for an immersive experience for our guests,” explained Eaddy Kiernan, a contributing editor who oversees the planning of the Met Gala. For the past 8 years the “red carpet” at the Met Gala has not actually been red; rather its design has been a reflection of the theme of that year’s show.

Last year, the carpet was white, with a swirl of lines that mirrored not only the name of the show, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” but the design of the exhibition itself. At the show’s press preview Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, described them as such: “The serpentine line signified his historicist, romantic, and decorative impulses, and the straight line denoted his modernist, classicist, and minimalist tendencies.” In fact, 2015’s “China: Through the Looking Glass,” was the last red carpet at a Met Gala. Since then, the carpet has generally incorporated a variety of colors, swooping designs, and motifs that make a statement without taking away attention—or clashing—with the myriad looks that walk upon it.

For last year’s “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” blue and red lines on the carpet.

John Shearer

A subtle nod to the American flag colors was the order of the day for 2022’s “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.”

Photo: Neilson Barnard/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

“In America: An Anthology of Fashion” as a two-part exhibition. For its 2021 debut, the carpet was white with a green leaf motif.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/MG21/Getty Images For The Met Museum/Vogue

The carpet for 2019’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion” could have only been pink.

Photo: Kevin Tachman/MG19/Getty Images

In 2018, the “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & the Catholic Imagination” carpet had a sort of stained-glass effect.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

For “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” in 2017, the carpet featured a pop of color courtesy of a very classically Comme shade of the purest blue.

Theo Wargo/Getty Images

It was red, pink, and ecru for 2016’s “Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age of Technology.”

Larry Busacca/Getty Images

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