Deliberately Designed for Disconnection

Written By Rachel Hale, Culture Editor Photographed by Luc Marchessault, Staff Photographer Edits by Hunter Kiehl, Photography Director Modeled by Aliya Glasper | Makeup by Mara Hansen Styled by Ella Cunz, Programming and Special Events Coordinator T he Met Gala’s recent announcement of their 2023 theme has us looking back on past latest and greatest moments from the first Mondays in May. When it comes to the event’s potential to push fashion boundaries, one would be remiss not to bask in the glory that was 2019’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion.”

On the red carpet, celebrities brought the avant-garde: Billy Porter dressed as an Egyptian Pharaoh with gilded wings and Zendaya wore a light-up Tommy Hilfiger Cinderella dress with her stylist in tow dressed as her fairy godmother.1 Cardi B wore $250,000 rubies as nipple covers, and that was the least noticeable part of her oxblood red peacock ensemble that boasted 30,000 feathers, a crystal-adorned headpiece and 10-foot-train that weighed more than she did.

While Vogue’s exhibit is credited with putting the style under a spotlight in recent years, the exhibition pulled inspiration from an earlier source: Susan Sontag’s seminal 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp” in which she explains what “camp” means in 58 bullet points. Sontag defines camp not as an idea, but as a sensibility characterized by artifice, stylization, theatricalization, irony, playfulness and exaggeration.2

In its inherent resistance against societal norms, camp is deeply rooted in LGBTQ+, Black and Latinx spaces, from the thriving culture scene of Harlem’s house balls in New York City to the influence of Pepper LaBeija, Benny Ninja, Josephine Baker and RuPaul. At the 2019 gala, Met Gala Co-Chair Lena Waithe paid homage to the aes-

1 Julie Kosin, “Zendaya’s Cinderella Gown Just Stole the Show at the 2019 Met Gala,” Harper’s BAZAAR, May 6, 2019. 2 Susan Sontag , “Notes On ‘Camp,’” 1964