The inaugural Penn Met Gala, themed Retrofuturism, will take place this Friday at the Penn Museum.
Sponsored by Baker Retailing Center, the event will have a DJ, photo booth, outfit contests, and a raffle. Attendants will be granted automatic entry into the raffle by purchasing a ticket to the event. The event will take place from 8:00 to 10:30 p.m.
Penn club leaders from Alloy Media, Penn Fashion Week, Penn Fashion Collective, and the Walk worked together to organize the event. The Penn Met Gala is the culminating event in a month of student-planned, fashion-related events on campus, said the leaders. During March, Penn Fashion Collective put on their annual fashion show; Baker Retail and Penn Fashion Week hosted various speaker events, and the WALK Magazine released its spring issue.
“Expect a creative space where people are bringing fashion to the forefront and where you can really play around with clothes and make your creativity. It'll obviously be a fun event as well,” Penn Fashion Week President Ella Worth said.
Wharton sophomore and Alloy Media President Lee Reid came up with the idea for the gala this past summer.
“The Penn Met Gala is my brainchild. It is my baby. It's an idea that I had over the summer, and in tandem with a club I just started called Alloy Media, just trying to create a creative network on campus and mobilize a creative community,” Reid said.
The gala’s theme will celebrate the '60s and '70s perceptions of the future.
“Think like flying cars; futuristic, silver, metallic things that people really imagined decades ago; what the future looks like,” Wharton senior and Penn Fashion Collective President Carly Siegel said.
The presidents emphasized how the theme, Retrofuturism, leaves a lot of room for creative freedom.
“We settled on Retrofuturism because it really gives space for interpretation … You could wear something very futuristic, or you could wear something a little more retro, and it all works within a broader theme,” Worth said.
Worth also hopes that attendees realize how much they can express themselves through fashion.
“I'm hoping students will see the power of style and what that can really do for people and how it's such a manifestation of your personal creativity, and who you are in all facets of your life. You can really channel that through clothes,” Worth said.
Siegel echoed Worth and added that the event will create a space for like-minded people to meet in a creative fashion space.
“We really wanted to create an environment for students to express themselves and to meet other people who are also interested in the same,” Siegel said.
The presidents hope this event will be an annual one and will continue to grow into something bigger.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationships among the different Penn fashion communities were disjointed. Worth said that this event will offer an opportunity for Penn fashion clubs to come together every year.
“We came together this year with the hope that we can redevelop those connections and relationships between the fashion clubs on campus. Our manifestation of that relationship between the clubs was to create one large culminating fashion related event at Penn,” Worth said.
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