On Monday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will host its annual Met Gala, a world-renowned fundraiser that assembles luminaries from the aesthetic, athletic, music, business, and political worlds to support the museum’s Costume Institute, an establishment with a collection of nearly 33,000 sartorial pieces that span seven centuries. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The gala originated in 1948 as a midnight supper called the Costume Institute Benefit and has burgeoned over time into a major cultural event that uses clothing as an intellectual marker of historical epochs, social and political movements, and evolving perspectives on good taste and beauty. Each year, guests of the Met Gala are required to dress according to a theme that corresponds with the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition.