The First Monday In May is a highly anticipated documentary that follows the making of the annual Met Gala, which premiered Wednesday night at The Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
The film closely follows Andrew Bolton, the curator of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, and the infamous Anna Wintour, Editor-In-Chief of Vogue and trustee of the museum, as they plan and curate last year’s exhibition, China: Through The Looking Glass.
Directed by Andrew Rossi, who’s also known for his documentary Page One: Inside The New York Times, the film truly transports you into the high-profile world of fashion. A frivolous world to some, but to so many an art form that has the capacity to tell amazing stories. The film gives viewers a behind the scenes of what many argue is fashion’s biggest and most high-profile event each year.
The exhibit, first debuted at The Met Gala and then opened to the public, aimed to explore how Chinese aesthetics have inspired Western fashion. Work from designers such as John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent were juxtaposed with Chinese paintings, porcelains and films to create a world within the confined space of The Metropolitan Museum.
The documentary also touches largely on the controversy that surrounded last year’s event.
At last year’s gala, a number of celebrities’ outfits were critiqued for what some felt was cultural appropriation. Many were quick to jump to the conclusion that the exhibition and those celebrating it at The Met Gala were simply exploiting the Chinese culture by having no reference or background on its origins. The First Monday In May offers complete transparency into the mindset of Bolton as he worked to pull off the exhibit, ensuring he was doing justice to its roots.
One of the best insights the film offered was seeing Bolton’s process and his work alongside Wong Kar-Wai, a Chinese filmmaker that Bolton drew tremendous inspiration from and the artistic director of the exhibit. Wong was also a guiding force in determining the line between what was appreciation, and what stereotyped his culture. This acted as a checks and balances system for ensuring that the exhibit had an accurate interpretation of the culture.
A great example of that learning process shown in the documentary was when Bolton wanted to put clothing featuring Mao Zedong inside a room with Buddhist art. Wong felt this would be insensitive, and firmly cautioned against that choice, resulting in Bolton agreeing to change it.
Over the nine-month span that the film covers, Bolton is constantly shown in conversation with the Met’s curator of Asian art to ensure that the art and the clothing work together to tell an authentic story of the culture’s history.
The focus of the documentary is to show the coming together of the art and the exhibit, highlighting the small details that make the event as amazing as it is. From the choosing of table linens and forks inside Wintour’s home, the celebrity-filled seating charts and the construction of a venue centerpiece made of 250,000 roses, you get an inside look at every overwhelming, deadline driven (but worth it) step in the process.
And if you were one of those “cultural appreciation” doubters, this film surely show you was actually going through Bolton’s mind.
Sydney is a current Junior studying Journalism & Design at Eugene Lang and the Co-Editor-In-Chief of The New School Free Press. She spends a questionable amount of time responding to emails, remembering coffee orders for her various internships, producing films & frolicking around the Lower East Side where she’s living her New York dream of occupying a bedroom with a brick wall.
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