Fashionistas and TikTok wannabe fashion critics, your time has come. Vogue has officially announced the 2024 Met Gala dress code. And while a national pastime for any viewer of the event is to see how ridiculously off-mark the Met Gala celebrity looks can be when it comes to adhering to the dress code, it’s crucial to try and understand it in the first place. This year’s Met Gala dress code is “Garden of Time.” And, with the help of co-chairs Zendaya, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, and Chris Hemsworth (yeah, we’re confused too), the infamous Anna Wintour will greet the Hollywood elite at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the first Monday of May, which this year falls on May 6, 2024.

The Met Gala 2024 Theme And Dress Code

The Met Gala 2024 exhibit, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” was revealed on Nov. 8, 2023. The exhibit’s theme sets the tone for the attire of the night, which has officially been dubbed “Garden of Time.” I know, know… HUH? I’ve never understood why the theme and dress code at the Met Gala always seemed so different from each other, but hey, I don’t have the beautiful, twisted mind of Anna. The exhibition will focus on exploring nature through the creation and sensory aspects of clothing. It will pull archival pieces from the past 400 years from Dior, Givenchy, and more that are the “sleeping beauties” of their collections.

WTF Does ‘Garden Of Time’ Even Mean?

According to Vogue, the 2024 Met Gala’s dress code is “Garden of Time” (which honestly feels like it belongs on the wedding invite of the most annoying person you know.) It’s less about the garden aspect (but let’s be real, we’re going to see a lot of florals) and more about “the celebration of clothing and fashion so fragile that it can’t ever be worn again.” And no, this doesn’t mean that one SHEIN swimsuit you have that would absolutely disintegrate in the washing machine.

The dress code is a nod to the 1962 J.G. Ballard story with the same title. Basically, there’s this super fancy guy, Count Axel, and his wife, the Countess. They are living it up in a super nice villa with an incredible garden filled with flowers that look like they’re made out of glass. So they’re in their little bubble of paradise, but outside of that bubble, there’s this super rowdy mob that just gets closer and closer everyday.

Count Axel’s garden’s flowers are time-traveling flowers that can turn back time (duh!). But every time he uses one, the mob gets farther, but they’re still coming at him, and eventually, he uses up all the flowers. Boom, the flowers run out, the mob eventually gets to the Count and his Countess, and all that’s left at the end is a broken-down mansion, and a statue of the couple stuck in a mess of vines.

And this story is the basis for the dress code. Does that help? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s okay, all we can do is wait and hope to see updates from the co-chair group chat that we all wish we were part of.