NEW YORK — Music, movie and sports superstars will come together as co-chairs of the 2023 Met Gala.
Dua Lipa, Penelope Cruz, Michaela Cole and Roger Federer are this year’s selections for the glitzy, fashion-focused event in New York City paying tribute to designer Karl Lagerfeld, organizers announced Wednesday.
The latest edition of the Metropolitan Museum fund-raising gala takes place May 1. The night’s Lagerfeld theme coincides with an exhibit, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” opening May 5 and featuring more than 150 of the designer’s original looks.
The selection of Federer as a co-chair comes less than a year after the tennis great retired following a career featuring 20 Grand Slam singles wins. Cole starred in last November’s superhero blockbuster “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and previously won a writing Emmy for the series “I May Destroy You.”
Lipa, a three-time Grammy winner, is known for hits such as “New Rules,” “Levitating” and “Don’t Start Now.” Cruz is an Oscar winner for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” with more than 80 acting credits.
The German-born Lagerfeld, who served as creative director of Chanel and Fendi, was no stranger to controversy, including for his criticisms of women’s bodies and of the #MeToo movement. The designer died in 2019 at age 85.
“He would sketch everything,” Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Met’s Anna Wintour Costume Center, said last year of Lagerfeld, according to Vogue.
“He would always say that he could draw before he could talk or walk. In many ways it was his primary form of communication, whether he was delivering them by fax machine or iPhone. So at its heart the exhibition will look at the evolution of Karl’s two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional garments.”
This will be the second consecutive year the Met Gala takes place during its typical slot on the first Monday of May. The event was canceled in 2020 and pushed to September in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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