'The Met Gala is an event already famed for pageantry. So why did this year's theme, 'Camp: Notes on Fashion,' blow the top off it Monday night, beginning with a shimmering spectacle of color, sequins and golden wings?' writes Susan Jonasus for CNNOpinion
Susan Jonusas is a London-based historian specializing in 18th- and 19th-century popular culture and the history of British cinema. She is working on a book about a family of murderers on the frontier in 1870's Kansas. The Met Gala is an event already famed for pageantry.
Susan JonasusThough the gala has rarely ever been dull, along with the feathers and glitter there was an electricity on the pink carpet which made it singular, a particularly apt reaction to the cultural moment. It took its theme from Susan Sontag's 1964"Notes on Camp" essay, which traced camp's roots back to the 18th century, a period defined by its"extraordinary feeling for artifice" and love of the"picturesque and thrilling.
Watch stars model the Met Gala's most dramatic looks 01:20Nowhere were such elements of artifice and picturesque thrills more on display than at the Court of Versailles, to which Sontag had alluded. Versailles was a glittering palace that functioned both as the political and fashion center of France. The man who built it, Louis XIV, was notorious for his extravagance. He became known as the Sun King.
Watch Lady Gaga make her entrance at the Met Gala 02:25As the opulence of the 18th century began to dissipate, Sontag suggests that the traditional aristocracy were replaced by"aristocrats of taste," a pattern that has continued to this day and allowed camp to become a tool of marginalized groups. To a contemporary eye it is associated with the latter half of the 20th century with the ascent of gay and civil rights movements and subversion of gender expectations.
In a time where we are increasingly preoccupied with identity, camp feels more relevant than ever. The widespread excitement surrounding the Met Gala's display reminds us that fashion continues to have the power to surprise, delight and frustrate. It challenges prescribed ideas about how we present ourselves in a constantly changing world and remains one of the key tools in self-expression outside the status quo.
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