Broadway superstar, songwriter, and filmmaker Lin-Manuel Miranda (Tick, Tick … Boom) was recently named one of the four co-chairs of the Met Gala. The announcement makes him only the fourth Latine host in the nearly 50-year history of the event.
The theme for this year’s Met Gala, which provides funding for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, is “Gilded Glamour,” according to New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman.
According to GQ magazine, the Costume Institute will present the exhibition In America: An Anthology of Fashion, which is the second part of its nod to contemporary American fashion. Last year, they presented In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.
Alongside Miranda, the other three co-chairs for the evening will be actress and director Regina King (One Night in Miami…), and actress Blake Lively (A Simple Favor) and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool). Designer Tom Ford, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri, and Vogue’s Anna Wintour will serve as honorary co-chairs.
In the history of the Met Gala, there have only been four other Latine co-chairs since the event debuted in 1973. In 1994, Dominican fashion designer Oscar de la Renta hosted the gala with fellow fashion designer Bill Blass and socialite Patricia Buckley, who had hosted solo for 16 straight years before that.
It would take 17 years for de la Renta to return to co-chair the gala again, this time with its second Latine talent, Venezuelan fashion designer Carolina Herrera. De la Renta would co-host a third and final time in May 2014, five months before his death at the age of 82.
The third Latine talent to serve as co-chair was Brazilian fashion model Gisele Bündchen in 2017. Among her fellow chairs were her husband and pro-football player Tom Brady and musicians Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams.
Miranda was scheduled to co-host the event with actress Emma Stone (La La Land) and Meryl Streep (Don’t Look Up) in 2020 before it was canceled during the pandemic.