Met Gala anticipation is heating up, from guestlist speculation to skyrocketing ticket prices

First, some bad news: If you were waiting for your invitation to the Met Gala to be hand-delivered by Anna Wintour herself, it’s probably not happening at this point.

The good news? The 2023 edition of the “fashion Oscars” is fast approaching, promising as always to be a fascinating intersection between celebrity, style and spectacle. Will this be the year someone tops Rihanna’s stupendously meme-able Pizza Dress? Could Katy Perry, who’s previously attended dressed as both a chandelier and a cheeseburger (in the same night!) make a return as a hot dog or a halogen bulb? Will we see an entrance to rival Billy Porter’s in 2019, when he was carried along the red carpet by six shirtless men? Anything as terrifying as Jared Leto that same year, carrying his own head?!

The delights and surprises of the red carpet are all to come, but here’s what we know about the 2023 Met Gala so far.

When is the 2023 Met Gala?

Famously, it’s the first Monday in May; this year, that falls handily on May 1. If you want to watch the red carpet as it happens — cameras aren’t allowed in the gala proper — there’ll be a livestream courtesy of “Vogue,” which has an exclusive on the event because it’s the fundraising baby of its editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. In fact, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which hosts this event to raise funds for its costume institute, recently renamed its fashion collection the Anna Wintour Costume Center in her honour.

What is the 2023 Met Gala theme?

Each year, the Met Gala takes its theme from the new fashion exhibition opening at the museum. In 2023, attendees will be expected to follow the dress code: “In honour of Karl.” They will draw outfit inspo from the exhibition “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” which includes 150 pieces of clothing and traces the late German-born designer’s career from his beginnings as an assistant to Pierre Balmain, through stints at Fendi, Chloé and his eponymous label, culminating in his decades helming Chanel before his death in 2019.

Lagerfeld is undoubtedly an influential figure in 20th century fashion — he’s the guy who designed Chanel’s iconic interlocking C logo, for starters — but this exhibition theme has been controversial. Lagerfeld was notoriously fatphobic — body shaming Adele, telling a German magazine in 2009 that “no one wants to see curvy women” — called Princess Diana “stupid” and claimed Coco Chanel couldn’t have been a feminist because she wasn’t “ugly enough for that.” He was also anti-refugee, thought the #MeToo movement was nonsense, and expressed support for more than one man accused of sexual assault.

Whether this reputational cloud deters fashion’s A-list from wearing, say, archival Chanel from the ’80s or dressing as Lagerfeld’s beloved cat Choupette, however, remains to be seen.

How much is a Met Gala ticket?

Inflation has come for gala ticket prices: a (literal) seat at the table has risen to USD $50,000 from USD $30,000 last year. Citing the cost of living crisis, however, may not be the best move for a celebrity on a budget, since it’s rumoured that turning down an invite once means you’re off the list forever. A terrifying threat!

Who are the Met Gala hosts this year?

This year’s co-chairs are writer and actress Michaela Coel, singer Dua Lipa, tennis star Roger Federer (a noted fan, Wintour has called herself his “groupie”) and longtime Chanel ambassador Penelope Cruz. Gen Z influencer Emma Chamberlain will be back this year to host the red carpet livestream along with TV personality La La Anthony, writer Derek Blasberg and “SNL” comic Chloe Fineman. We know we’ll see them on the red carpet. Everyone else, however, is pure speculation.

Who’s on the guestlist for the Met Gala?

While we don’t know the guestlist until people actually arrive to make the trek up the Met’s grand staircase, tracking the pre-event rumours is half the fun. This year is particularly juicy because the event is being “scaled back,” which means the invite list is even tighter than it already was.

“Page Six” reported that Wintour is “banning” all Kardashian-Jenners — perhaps in reprisal for Kim’s crime against fashion conservation last year, when she wore Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress and may have damaged it — but Kim’s reps have said that was false.

Others who won’t be waiting by the mailbox for their invite? Several celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Demi Lovato and Lili Reinhart have spoken out less than enthusiastically about the Met Gala, which likely means they’re in fashion Siberia now in perpetuity. According to “Deadline,” actor Jonathan Majors, who was going to attend with Valentino, won’t be attending after his arrest last month on charges relating to domestic violence.

So who will be there? A few educated guesses include Taylor Swift, since she’s been spotted out and about in New York several times lately in between stops on her tour, and Rihanna may make her return, having skipped last year as she was about to give birth, though this year she may be too close to her second due date with her second child. You can count on a contingent of supermodels including Naomi Campbell, Gigi Hadid, Liu Wen, Adut Akech and Shalom Harlow, who were all in “Vogue’s” most recent Met Gala-focused issue, a harbinger of attendance to come.

You’ll also likely see a few Gen Zs of the moment — Jenna Ortega, perhaps, or Halle Bailey whose film “The Little Mermaid” comes out a few weeks after the Met Gala.

But until that magic first Monday in May, we’ll just have to keep guessing.

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