Relive All the Met’s Costume Exhibitions With Your Own Collection of Catalogs

21 Years of Met Gala Costume Exhibitions Catalogs
Photo: Stuart Tyson  / Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Years before I started as an accessories assistant at Vogue, my mom and I would go to see the Costume Institute exhibitions together, and it became a tradition I looked forward to every summer. We’d meet at the uptown 6 train platform at Grand Central, head up to Museum Mile together, press on our Met entrance stickers (and reminisce about the old times when they used pins), then make our way through the exhibition. We’d often check out a few other galleries along the way, typically searching for the Robert Venturi Chippendale chair my mom is certain lives somewhere in the American Wing (spoiler alert, we’ve never been able to find it), then head to the roof for a glass of rosé while we rested what we like to call our “slow-museum-stroll legs.” The day is not over, however, until we stop at the bookshop on the way out to pick up a copy of the exhibition’s catalog.

Collecting books has been important to my family since before my time, and the house I grew up in was basically held up by wall-to-wall bookshelves. There were side tables made from overflowing stacks, and every coffee table had a few on display. My own collection of Met mementos started the day we visited “Punk: Chaos to Couture” and has grown each year since, from one volume featuring the remarkable ball gowns of “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” to the electric and exaggerated “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” Now as a market editor, I look forward to walking up the steps again for this year’s show, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” and, of course, picking up the newest catalog for my personal collection.

21 Years of Met Gala Costume Exhibitions Catalogs
Photo: Stuart Tyson  / Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

2023: “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty”

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty

2021–2022: “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion”

In America: A Lexicon of Fashion

2020: “About Time: Fashion and Duration”

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About Time: Fashion Duration

2019: “Camp: Notes on Fashion”

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Camp: Notes on Fashion

2018: “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination”

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Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination

2017: “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between”

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Rei Kawakubo/Commes des Garcons: Art of the In-Between

2016: “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology”

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Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology

2015: “China: Through the Looking Glass”

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China: Through the Looking Glass

2014: “Charles James: Beyond Fashion”

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Charles James: Beyond Fashion

2013: “Punk: Chaos to Couture”

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Punk: Chaos to Couture

2012: “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations”

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Schiaparelli Prada: Impossible Conversations

2011: “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

2009: “The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion”

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The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion

2008: “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy”

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Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy

2007: “Poiret: King of Fashion”

2006: “AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion”

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AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion

2005: “The House of Chanel”

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The House of Chanel

2004: “Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century”

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Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century

2003: “Goddess: The Classical Mode”

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Goddess: The Classical Mode

2001: “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years”

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Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years