A Look Back at Stunning Met Gala Interiors Over the Years

Every year, event planner Raul Ávila is given a daunting task: to transform the Metropolitan Museum of Art into an otherworldly spectacle for the annual Met Gala. For 2019’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” he created a 25-foot tall, flamboyant flamingo centerpiece comprised of 30,000 flowers. In 2018, he erected a rose recreation of a papal crown for “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” And those are just examples of floral formations: In 2007, for “Poiret: King of Fashion,” he filled a gilded birdcage with live peacocks. Minor chaos ensued when one escaped. “Everyone at the museum was chasing after her to get her back into the cage,” he recalled.

Each event brings an adventure: in 2013, Avila and his team flew in a chandelier from London and rigged it with razor blades for that year’s punk-themed bash, and “Heavenly Bodies” saw the Met’s grand staircase alight with thousands of candles. Then there are the table settings: 2019, for example, saw tablescapes with bamboo flatware, feather lampshades, floral plates, and shocking pink tablecloths.

2023’s soirée, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” honored the Chanel creative director with its decor. The Temple of Dendur boasted a set that resembled Lagerfeld’s home library, while the tablescapes took aesthetic cues for the famous wedding reception he threw for Paloma Picasso.

This year’s event—“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”—and its sure-to-be fantastical decor will take place on May 6. So until then, take a spin through the Met Gala interiors throughout the years, from 2005’s Chanel-themed soiree to the most recent affair in 2023.

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty

In America: An Anthology of Fashion and A Lexicon of Fashion

Camp: Notes on Fashion

Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination

Rei Kawakuno / Comme des Garçons: Art of The In-Between

Manus X Machina: Fashion In An Age of Technology

China: Through The Looking Glass

Charles James: Beyond Fashion

Punk: Chaos to Couture

Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

American Woman: Fashioning A National Identity

The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy

Poiret: King of Fashion

Anglomania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion

Chanel