Big Tech's backing of the Met Gala has pushed the storied event, and the fashion week leading up to it, into a new era led by content strategy.
New York Fashion Week has reached peak influencer presence in the pandemic era, culminating in a Met Gala made for the masses.
Social media stars ruled the front rows of fashion week, which returned to New York on Sept. 8 despite a raging COVID-19 Delta variant. Influencer presence at fashion week was a precursor of the Met Gala, which this year hosted a record number of TikTok, YouTube and Instagram stars.
Fashion’s most exclusive event has made small advances in embracing social media over the past few years. In 2019, it hosted four influencers, whose attendance prompted backlash from social media users questioning whether content creators should be received by fashion’s highest echelons. Those same questions were revived again this year, when the Met Gala invited nearly double the amount of content creators.