The official dress code for the 2024 Met Gala was “The Garden of Time.”
The dress code accompanied the Costume Institute’s 2024 exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” The exhibition explored approximately 400 years of fashion history through around 250 garments and related objects, including pieces considered too fragile to be displayed in conventional ways. Its title referred to garments that had effectively been placed into a form of museum “sleep.”
“The Garden of Time” was taken from the title of a 1962 short story by J. G. Ballard. Guests interpreted the phrase through flowers, botanical references, nature imagery, and ideas of growth, decay, and renewal. A frequent mix-up is calling the dress code “Sleeping Beauties”; that was the exhibition title, not the official dress code. The gala took place on May 6, 2024, and was co-chaired by Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth.