the Met Gala funds the Met Costume Institute. meaning, basically, the Met’s clothing collection
from what I’ve read, it is the main source of funding for the Institute, which houses over 31,000 garments and accessories from the 17th century onwards
as for why the Costume Institute needs a separate fundraiser from the rest of this vast world-class museum with many high-profile donors…I have often wondered that myself. in the same breath as wondering why the Met has so few and sparse costume exhibits in any given year, and why some pieces on their collections website are outright misdated
but that’s the situation, so. that’s what the Met Gala is for. it’s not just rich people parading around in couture for fun. it keeps a huge museum collection of historical clothing preserved, so people can learn from and be inspired by those garments for years to come
(via ticket sales to the aforementioned rich people parading around in couture. and, in the case of guests who attend for free, the designers who make said couture and pay for tables for their celebrity models as publicity)
I’m not affiliated with the Met or the Met Costume Institute, but I am in graduate school and work in a museum with a substantial clothing and textile collection, so I will take a stab at it:
Storage: Clothing and Textiles (C&T) take up A LOT of space. Garments are usually stored by laying them flat in drawers or by being hung. You can’t fold them, you can’t store them on mannequins long term. They require space and (like all museum collections) sympathetic and specialized storage materials like acid-free tissue and boxes. That stuff is expensive.
Conservation: to put older garments on exhibit, you often need to bring in specialized textile conservators to just prep the garments for exhibition. Some historical pieces are too fragile to go on a mannequin (we have an AMAZING beaded 1920s flapper dress that lives in its drawer because the straps aren’t strong enough to hold it up on a mannequin and the skirt is approximately 600 billion seed and tube beads that need pinned in place). A lot of historic garments need conservation and/or restoration work before going on exhibit ( I spent MONTHS repairing the bodice of a 1950s gown, including recreating the beadwork). One of the common materials from the late 19th century was weighted silk; weighted silk has been treated with lead and other metallic salts. This means it literally breaks down over time. Chunks fall off. It shreds. You have to make sure the object can stand up to the rigors of exhibition before going on exhibit.
Exhibition is stressful for objects. Light is extremely damaging to most museum objects, and exhibition means extended periods for days on end. People coming in and out of the gallery means that the temperature and relative humidity is going to fluctuate, also causing damage to the objects. Just being on a mannequin, and out of its dark, safe, controlled environment is stressful for garments. My museum is talking about putting an exhibit of out 19th century clothing in the next year or so; our C&T curator needs to bring in a conservator to guide the process because we have to make sure the garments can handle it.
Also, textile conservators are expensive and highly sought after. Most museums don’t have one on staff. I don’t know if the Met does. Work on historic garments takes a long time, especially since most of it has to be done by hand.
Mannequins are also expensive. Many historic garments can’t go on adult mannequins; the mannequins are too big and the garments are too small. When C&T in my museum has exhibited 19th garments, we have to break out the kid-sized mannequins, and even then, they’re sometimes too big. Plus you have to store the mannequins when they’re not being used, which takes up mire space.
People: C&T is traditionally underfunded. It often doesn’t draw in the big donors. For things like quilts and other fiber arts, it’s often not seen as art the way paintings are. It’s women’s work, and women’s work is traditionally undervalued. Our C&T curator is constantly trying to raise money for her position’s endowment, to ensure that when she retires, another curator will be hired. There’s a museum about 2 hours north of where I am; they have a large C&T collection, but haven’t had a curator in years.
I don’t know how the Met’s budget is laid out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Costume Institute’s budget was one of the smaller ones.
sharing this again because, as a museum worker myself, I deeply appreciate you adding all the related info!
and as for C&T being underfunded. it’s so true.
one of the museums I work at, a 19th-century historical house, has a collection of amazing period garments and accessories. we have a general curator, but guess who’s the primary person on staff with specialist textile/dress history knowledge?
me
the tour guide/admin assistant/museum tech with no graduate degree who learned textile conservation from working with antique dolls
(fortunately I have a lot of field experience and do independent research, so I do know enough to keep the collection stable, mount garments for temporary display, etc. but still. before me, we had no C&T person at all. after me, we likely won’t have one again. and that’s normal)
this is a huge area of museum work with precious few resources to spare. and it’s not like museums have pots of cash to throw around in general. so sometimes, we have to let donors peacock a bit to get their money
I’ve been going back and forth about saying anything on this post and topic because I don’t want to sound like I disagree w/ the cultural value of supporting things like the Met Costume Institute in general. But I keep thinking about this post since I read it two days ago so I figured I’d just say what I want to say, WHILE specifying that I am in no way against the value of efforts like this.
But I am VERY anti-gala style fundraising and philanthropic fundraising happens to be my personal area of expertise. So step with me for a moment into that world. First, let me get my credentials out of the way just to make it clear that I do have a legitimate niche knowledge base. I’ve work in nonprofits since 2005 and in fundraising specifically since 2012. I have a Master’s degree in nonprofit management and philanthropy from a so called top-tier institution in the field and I’m a Certified Fund Raising Executive credential holder.
Gala style fundraising is the LEAST community centric and MOST blatantly donor focused way you can raise funds. My main gripe with it is that the process inherently involves and relies on EXTREMELY high cost of overhead that is 100% focused on the wealthy donor class having a super fun evening and not at all about the actual need or issue they are “supporting.”
What I’m saying here in plain language is that, if you pay $30,000 for a Met Gala ticket and $10,000 (estimate/made up figure for illustrative purposes) of that cost covers allllll the stuff of putting on the event and all the attendee goodies and perks, you’ve taken $10,000 that WAS available for the cause from donors w/ that level of disposable income and diverted it right back into their own pockets by way of attending and enjoying the event itself.
So many other fundraising vehicles might have been able to receive that $30,000 and put a much MUCH higher percentage of it right back into their actual mission work. (Disclaimer: as a nonprofit fundraiser, I am in no way saying there should be 0 overhead costs because we obviously have necessary expenses of doing the work, but overhead that benefits the rich patrons themselves is what I’m really pointing out here.)
If the reaction to my point here right now is, “Well the fancy rich people and celebrities who do this stuff won’t pay the $30,000 donation unless they can attend the event w/ the $10,000 in perks” then THANK YOU because that’s exactly what I’m actually speaking to as to why this situation is fucked up. We’re being told their circus is necessary.
“Philanthropy” like this broken…its been colonized within an inch of its life and the people who have the resources and means to make giant donations are doing so because they can selfishly get a good old fancy, publicized time out of it. And further more, with the case of many, many galas beyond the Met, the supporters attend them because it’s a way that they are able to use their extreme wealth to support nonprofit “”“”“"causes”“”“”“ that they like and enjoy all year long (typically the arts, things like opera tickets, ballets, etc.) Those arts are wonderful and I’m not saying they shouldn’t exist, but they dominate this fundraising space while the smaller, typically social service or human service organization in the same community that is serving people inherently seen as less valuable (aka the poor; think of food banks, shelters, etc.) are not able to even tap into this world or space.
Some ultra rich donors support a diversity of causes. But I know with full certainty that some of the donors who have their names all over theatres and archives and collections to show off for their friends don’t give a cent to the causes serving their fellow community members who are not millionaires.
Again, the wider point being made on this thread is that these cultural artifacts should be protected and cared for and I fully agree. And the idea that the Met Costume Institute is depending on the Gala is undoubtedly true…but what I’m really trying to highlight here is that IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS. This was a choice that mostly white wealthy elites made–on both sides of the equation: the fundraisers AND the funders. We’re being fed an idea that this type of fundraising NEEDS to exist for these causes when that’s actually another symptom of the sickness of white supremacy that has permeated ever level of the philanthropic sector. It’s especially disturbing when you consider how many ultra high net worth people became that way through exploitation, harm, slavery, etc. That $30,000 that COULD have been theoretically donated to any cause was given to the Met because of the upper class hoopla fancy social media #goals driven keeping up with the Joneses class warfare nonsense. But tracing the money back to its roots, it shouldn’t have even been in the hands of the people making these decisions in the first place.
Obviously this is a beast of a long post about my subsector, so if anyone actually read it THANKS!
TLDR; The Met Costume Institute existing? COOL! The Met Galaexisting? Sorry, I find it incredibly fucked up and if I’m being real honest, it does fuel my guillotine themed dreams.
When @Zendaya revealed this outfit at the #MetGala2019 I, like so many others, was completely speechless! I loved how committed her and her designers were to bringing this version of Cinderella to life! It’s such a cool thing to see a little bit of magic happen in our world with everything that’s been going on.
