What Did the Met Gala Look Like Before Social Media?
What Did the Met Gala Look Like Before Social Media?
Camille FreestoneFri, May 1, 2026 at 7:54 PM UTC
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What Did the Met Gala Look Like Pre Social Media?Getty Images
Today, the Met Gala is no longer just a New York event. As soon as the first star sets foot on that carpet, a million Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook accounts begin broadcasting the whole thing to a global audience. Every year, the gowns are more grand, the red carpet performances and costume changes wilder—remember Law Roach making Zendaya’s Cinderella dress light up with a smoking magic wand?
But it wasn’t always like that. In fact, there wasn’t even a red carpet. The Met Gala began in 1948 as a fundraiser for the Costume Institute and an opening celebration of its annual exhibit. Once Diana Vreeland took over in the early 1970s, she introduced themes and star-ified the guest list. The former Bazaar fashion editor turned the gala into a highlight of the New York social calendar, making tickets highly coveted. (In 1996, former Bazaar editor Liz Tilberis took a turn hosting the gala, as well.) But still, it was not the globally recognized event it has become today. Worldwide renown came with the internet and, perhaps even more so, social media.
Ahead, we’ve asked those who were actually there pre-TikTok, pre-smart-phone, even pre-internet to share what this exclusive gala was really like in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
Whitney Houston, 1999Getty ImagesEric Weiss, New York Night Life Photographer
Attended the Met Gala from the late ‘80s into the early ‘90s, then again from 2004-2007
“The gala used to be held in December. They would keep [photographers] in a fishbowl. They would wrap a velvet rope into a circle around us. We would be inside the main entrance, not on the steps. There was nothing going on on the steps. Guests would come in and check their coats. You could either run to the bottom part of the circle to capture them or wait. It was like a sea of water shifting back and forth as people arrived. And it would get pretty crazy when some big deal showed up. A lot of the designers and their muses would try to avoid the press photographers. If they didn't feel like they wanted to be part of that, they would just shoot past us since we were all contained. None of us, save the Vogue photographer and Bill Cunningham of the Times, were allowed into the dinner.
CZ Guest, 1981Getty Images
Once the dinner started, the whole press contingency dissipated. People would just go to file their stories, to get their film developed, because back then, there was no digital photography. There would be an after-party, and that was really exciting. It was populated by all the creative teams that would work under the designers. There would be a DJ, sometimes live music at the Temple Dendur. And it was hilarious because it was much more laid back. People showed up in essentially street clothing. People wore their very personal style to the after-party. They allowed people to smoke cigarettes there. I actually remember going around as people were leaving and taking pictures of the crushed-out cigarettes on the marble floor.
Donatella Versace, 1999Getty Images
It was much more intimate because there was no immediacy to the photographs. It wasn’t like every single person had a camera. We, as photographers, cultivated our identities. They would be very accepting because we had established ourselves, and they knew that we weren't working for tabloids. Everybody was very fearful of getting slandered in the tabloids. They felt as though we could join the party. We weren’t stuck outside—they didn’t care who covered arrivals. We weren’t being wrangled by PR people. We had access. That was the difference, having this intimate access to people who would let their hair down, so to speak. Obviously, there was some elitism at play.
Christy Turlington, 1992Images Press - Getty Images
I would say right after they changed the date from the first week in December to the first Monday in May [in 2001] made a big difference. I shot the Met Gala from 2004 to 2007 for Vogue UK. It was a big change. And the fact that we all switched over from analog to digital made a big difference, as well. At that point, I was on the steps and the screaming that was going on and the intensity of the number of people that were coming all at once, that I needed to cover... A lot of the paparazzi next to me, they just needed the celebrities. I needed the designers, the society folks, the philanthropists.
Naomi Campbell, 1990Rose Hartman - Getty Images
[The advent of the internet] made things way more tense. There was a lot more security, a lot of PR people getting in the way, because you couldn't just show up. You had to show up with your publicist, so trying to frame a picture without some anonymous publicist blocking the shot made it really very nerve-wracking. The after parties kind of dissipated. Now, there are commercial after-parties.”
Andy Warhol, 1982Sonia Moskowitz - Getty ImagesVera Wang, Fashion Designer
Attended the Met Gala: Almost every year since the late 70s
“I think I'm probably the oldest, most attended Met Gala person that's still standing on two legs. I could be wrong, but I'm up there. I went when I worked at Vogue. Then, I went as part of Ralph Lauren and his team when I was there. And then the last maybe 37 or 38 years, I went on my own. Other than COVID, I think I've attended pretty much every Met Gala, believe it or not.
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Vera Wang, 1990Fairchild Archive - Getty Images
Because we all love fashion, it was important, but at the time, it was very much of an Upper East Side social kind of audience. Brooke Astor, Mica Ertegun, Pat Buckley. It was that kind of world, not quite the Swans—it was after Truman Capote’s era. I was very, very young, but these were the social doyennes of New York, and they were very involved with the Met Museum fundraising. My first experience of the Met was that it was women who were very much clothes horses, society ladies who adored fashion and wore the great designers. Dior. Saint Laurent. Even Oscar [de la Renta] was already working quite a bit by then. Bill Blass, Geoffrey Beene.
Wallis Simpson, 1974TPLP - Getty Images
I was wearing some very strange things. I believe it was the Met when Michael Kors took me, or I took Michael. Michael worked at Lothar's—which is mostly parkas and ski stuff—as a salesman. He had a little line he did for them. I bought a little slip dress from him in bronze charmeuse, and I wore one of his parkas. I was wearing Native American jewelry, a concho belt, and lots of turquoise. I think that was the night John Lennon was murdered. I also remember wearing Norma Kamali one year, a big tent skirt in red. One of those full, full, full party skirts, like mid-calf, and beautiful gold pumps laced around the leg, and a white T-shirt. The dress codes weren't as rigid; it was very much up to you what you wore. Or perhaps I ignored them.
Kelly and Calvin Klein, 1992Sonia Moskowitz - Getty Images
I wasn't even at the dinners, but I remember I would go to the after party, which used to be at the Met, believe it or not. After the seated dinner, the rest of us younger people could go to the big party. I'm thinking back to when I was like 32, and I'm gonna be 77. It was a party party. There was great music, and people were dancing. It was more of a club-like environment.
John Galliano, 1995MARI SARAI - Getty Images
It did not have a big red carpet. It was about the exhibit and the dinner. When Brooke was there and Pat Buckley and all these ladies, there was glamour, but it was a very different moment in life. Things were smaller. The world wasn't as expansive as it is now. Now the Met is viewed globally. It's not just a New York-centric or fashion-centric world like what we're in.”
Gisele Bundchen, 1998MARI SARAI - Getty ImagesMari Sarai, Photographer
Attended the Met Gala: 1998 and 1999
“I was shooting for Semana magazine, which is a Spanish gossip paper, and they would hire me to work specific events in New York. I was super young, and I wanted to be a fashion photographer, but I was working kind of like a paparazzi girl. We just didn't know as much about the Met as we do now.
Alan Cumming, 2001Images Press - Getty Images
At events like this, there were normally about 40 people, the same faces as always. We were all behind a rope. It's like a war zone in there. One year, we went inside, and the paparazzi got very violent, so we all got kicked out at once. It was over a top model like Claudia Schiffer or someone. It was really brutal. We were looking for famous names, the names we could make money from.
Liv Tyler and Stella McCartney, 1999New York Daily News Archive - Getty Images
They told me I had to wear black, so I was wearing a black jacket, black bottoms, and black shoes. Just look decent. Met Gala and Oscars, those were the only two events where I was told to wear black.
It was also before people really recognized designers' names. It was still about a ‘nice gown.’ Of course, some actresses would wear Donna Karan or something, and we knew that one, but we didn't know the smaller, upcoming names at all. The fashion was a big deal, but it wasn't as competitive as it is now with social media.
Iman and David Bowie, 2007Peter Kramer - Getty Images
I was too young to pay much attention to the theme. I had just graduated from college. Now, I'm so aware that it was an amazing experience. I remember Ben Affleck always came and talked to me. He was always like, ‘Hey girl, take my picture,’ and all the other paparazzi were like, ‘What's going on?’ That was pretty funny. That's my good memory of the bad experience of my time as a paparazzi.
The ‘90s Met Gala was probably scarier, I think. It wasn’t like guards-next-door at that time. There was still celebrity Hollywood fame, but their lives were really separated from ours. Social media broke celebrities into showing more of their private lives, but at that time, they didn't. Paparazzi photos were more valuable to scoop someone's secret life. That was a really bad job, but that's what made people want to buy the magazine. So if I got a lucky ticket to attend in the 90s, I would be so intimidated. I think I’d rather go now.”
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
