Met Gala 2020 Postponed Indefinitely Due to Coronavirus Pandemic

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has postponed the 2020 Met Gala, originally scheduled for the first Monday of May, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event, which annually raises millions of dollars for the Costume Institute, was to open the fashion exhibition "About Time: Fashion and Duration," inspired by Henri Bergson's philosophy and Virginia Woolf's "Orlando." The Met had already closed to the public as one of the first American museums to do so. Anna Wintour, Vogue editor-in-chief and organizer of the gala since 1995, used the occasion to criticize President Donald Trump's response to the pandemic in a Vogue editorial on March 16, accusing him of chaotic travel bans, xenophobic rhetoric, and lack of empathy, and urging readers to vote for Joe Biden. The gala, established in 1948 by former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, has no new date set.