The first Monday in May is like Christmas for any fashion lover with a Twitter account. The Met Gala — the annual fundraising gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institution — is officially back on for Monday, May 2 after its 2020 cancellation due to the pandemic.

This year’s gala consists of two parts due to that 2020 cancellation. The first, and smaller part, took place in September 2021 with the theme “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” The theme of the gala intended to reflect the current renaissance involving American identity in regard to fashion, but people mainly remember it as that time Kim Kardashian wore a black morph suit.

The 2021 gala’s theme was admittedly hard to understand from its name, and that confusion was more than apparent from the state of the attendees. Everyone went a different direction — from cowboy cosplay to sequined football jerseys, the night was a clear departure from the usually cohesive gala.

The second part’s theme is “In America: An Anthology of Fashion,” which will focus more on exploring the development of American fashion through history, particularly paying homage to the Gilded Age — giving everyone a smaller target to hit.

Esteemed fashion critic Vanessa Friedman has already given her perspective on the theme coining it “Gilded Glamour,” which will hopefully point stylists and their celebrity clients in the direction of the grandiose opulence which was lacking at the first part of the exhibition.

The thing I am most looking forward to, however, is this year’s exhibition’s collaboration with iconic film directors. Directors Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, Martin Scorsese, Autumn de Wilde and Chloé Zhao will all be contributing. The installation will be staged in the Met’s American Wing period rooms, where each director will be challenged to design cinematic vignettes — or freeze frames — based on their assigned room’s theme.

I personally cannot wait to see Sofia Coppola’s distinctive dream-like, sun-soaked, forever-ode-to-Kirsten-Dunst style of directing applied to her room.

This year’s gala will sport its usual bevy of famous hosts, with co-chairs including Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and I have thoughts.

To begin, Regina King was a great choice. Not only will she deliver in terms of fashion, but her recent shift to directing makes her a perfect fit for the exhibition. She is for sure going to be a key player of the night.

Blake Lively — an iconic red carpet staple at each year’s gala — will serve as she does every year, and on every red carpet for that matter. And Blake Lively’s husband, less importantly known as Ryan Reynolds, will glow by simply being in her presence.

Now Lin-Manuel Miranda. This was a surprise for me, but with the success of ”Tick, Tick…Boom!” which holds two nominations for this year’s Oscars, I can see the appeal. Lin is being carried by the wave that is the Andrew Garfield renaissance. Go off, I guess.

And that’s the basic rundown. I hope everyone will redeem themselves from last year’s miss, but I really just hope Harry Styles shows up this time.