Zendaya, Bad Bunny and an Intriguing Theme at the 2024 Met Gala

On Monday night, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will play host to one of the biggest fund-raising events and starriest parties of the year: the annual Costume Institute benefit, or as it’s been known for years, the Met Gala.

The event, which raises millions of dollars for the museum’s self-funding fashion wing, has become known for its audacious red carpet, with a highly exclusive guest list handpicked by Anna Wintour, the longtime Vogue editor and Condé Nast executive.

But this year’s event has been unusually shadowed by drama. The union representing employees of Condé Nast publications including Bon Appétit, GQ, Vanity Fair and Vogue escalated the stakes in its long-running contract negotiations on Saturday, telling the company in a video posted on X that if management didn’t meet the union at the bargaining table, its members would “meet you at the Met.”

But the possibility of a work stoppage and picket line during Vogue’s biggest night was averted early Monday morning, when Condé management and the union reached a tentative agreement on the terms of a contract.

“We made a commitment to do whatever it takes to get our contract,” Mark Alan Burger, a Vanity Fair social media manager and a member of the Condé Union bargaining team, said in a statement. “Our pledge to take any action necessary to get our contract, including walking off the job ahead of the Met Gala, and all the actions we took this week, pushed the company to really negotiate.” (Last week the New York Police Department said it was prepared for any demonstrations that might arise, adding that there were no street closures planned and that the police would have “an adequate security deployment.”)

Although the guest list for the gala is kept strictly under wraps, some famous faces are a surer bet than others. Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez and Zendaya will all be joining Ms. Wintour as co-chairs of the event. Some superstars like Rihanna have let slip in interviews that they are planning to attend. But apart from stray comments to the press, eager fans have little to go on besides poring over social media to see which of their favorite celebrities were spotted in New York City over the weekend.

Under Ms. Wintour’s leadership, the Met Gala has increasingly opened its arms to tech leaders — and its palms to their sponsorship — including Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook in past galas. This year, Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, the primary sponsor of the Costume Institute’s exhibition this spring, was named an honorary chair of the gala. In the weeks since that announcement, Mr. Chew has been summoned to appear before a congressional committee, and the company’s Chinese owner has been told that TikTok will be banned in the United States if it is not sold within nine months.

But fashion is the main event here, with previous dress codes playing it straight or challenging guests to think outside the box. Ahead of the Costume Institute’s spring 2019 show, “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” gala invitees were asked to dress with an air of “studied triviality.” The spring 2022 dress code, “gilded glamour,” had little to do with the corresponding exhibition, while the next year’s dress code — “in honor of Karl” (Lagerfeld, of course) — was a perfect match for the 2023 exhibition, dedicated to that designer’s 65-year career.

The dress code for the gala on Monday night is “Garden of Time,” an apparent reference to a 1962 short story by the British writer J.G. Ballard in which aristocrats living in a walled estate are menaced by the advance of a violent rabble. But the theme also nods to the subject of the spring exhibition, titled “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”

The show will feature 220 objects on view from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection, including garments too fragile to be traditionally displayed.

Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator, wrote in an essay about the exhibition, “The extreme fragility of these garments precludes them from being dressed on a mannequin, so in the exhibition they are displayed flat in glass cases to prevent further deterioration.”