Fashion & Influence: How Sustainable is the Met Gala?
On 5 May, hundreds of celebs will be dressed in their best for the 2025 Met Gala.
The event celebrates and raises money for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring exhibition, this year titled “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”.
Co-Chairing the evening are Anna Wintour, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams, ASAP Rocky, Colman Domingo and Honorary Chair LeBron James.
The event is sure to bring some incredible outfits – and millions of eyes – to fashion.
How does the Met Gala impact the environment?
The majority of outfits worn at this annual prestigious event are custom-made and unlikely to ever be worn again.
Each year, the event has a different theme to showcase the creativity of those in fashion and celebrate the annual exhibit in the museum it supports.
Even when themes celebrate nature or archival fashion, like 2024’s Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion or 2010’s American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, most attendees opt to wear new creations.
Materials like sequins and synthetic fabrics will, more often than not, remain in the environment for centuries if not indefinitely.
However, the Met Gala can do a lot of good, particularly on addressing social issues.
The theme and exhibition for 2025, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, focuses on Black dandyism as a cultural and historical lens to explore Black identity, resistance and style innovation.
Why does it matter?
Clothing companies create more than a million garments every day according to Greenpeace.
The Met Gala guest list is usually limited to around 700 people.
In the grand scheme of things, the clothes created for and worn at the event are a very small piece of the overall carbon footprint of fashion.
However, hundreds of millions of people see and hear about these outfits, and the combined social media following of the invite-only attendees is colossal.
Fashion as a whole has a big impact on the environment and communities.
According to the World Economic Forum:
- The fashion industry is responsible for around 10% of global emissions
- Nearly 20% of the world’s wastewater is produced by the fashion industry
- Half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres are enter the ocean every year
- On its current trajectory, fashion could be responsible for as much as 25% of global emissions by 2050.
The sheer influence of the Met Gala often has an impact on wider consumer fashion.
After the 2023 Met Gala, florals, bows, pearls and bridal, many of which featured in prominent outfits, all had trending moments.
Approaching fashion in a more sustainable way could, therefore, lead brands and consumers to do the same.
Who wore sustainability best?
Not everyone shows up in unsustainable outfits.
In 2024, a few high-profile celebs went for sustainable materials like deadstock fabric, upcycled pieces and lab-grown diamonds.
Charli XCX was dressed in a white gown crafted from 50 vintage t-shirts designed by Francesco Risso of Marni.
Janelle Monáe’s Vera Wang gown featured flowers crafted from recycled plastic bottles.
Amanda Seyfried wore a metallic satin Prada gown made from repurposed deadstock fabric, originally from Prada’s 2009 Spring collection.
Ed Sheeran was dressed in a Stella McCartney suit featuring lab-grown diamonds and vegan leather shoes.
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