Rival French Met Gala is coming to The Louvre on the first Tuesday in March

The Met Gala has raised money for The Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art since its inception as a society dinner in 1948. Diana Vreeland followed by Anna Wintour, its co-chair since 1995, later succeeded in growing it into the behemoth, known by many as the first Monday in May or simply as fashion’s most glittering night.

This year, Paris’ Louvre Museum will take on the American gallery for that title, however, as it reveals plans for a French Met Gala two months earlier, on March 4 — the first Tuesday in March — during Paris Fashion Week.

The fundraising event, which the museum has reported already hit “its fundraising goal of one million euros”, will help promote the gallery’s first fashion exhibition, Louvre Couture: Art and Fashion — Statement Pieces, which opens to the public on January 24.

This follows the Met Gala’s lead: each event is themed to fit with the year’s fashion exhibition, from Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty in 2023, to last year’s Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, and come with an appropriate dress code. The Parisian event has been christened “Le Grand Dîner du Louvre,” however we are yet to hear if guests will be asked to dress to a theme.

WWD reported that more than 30 tables were put up for auction for the event, and that the “biggest houses and foremost designers lending to the exhibition” had purchased tables.

There should be no shortage of star power in Paris at that time, certainly. Last March, during Paris Fashion Week, stars including Kim Kardashian, Kate Moss, Paul McCartney, David Beckham, Gigi Hadid, Penélope Cruz, Emma Stone, Cate Blanchett, Sophie Turner, Pharrell and Naomi Campbell were all in town.

It has been reported the night will start with a sparkling reception and a tour around the exhibition. Per the museum, “65 designs are displayed, along with a number of accessories, newly illuminating the close historical dialogue that continues to take place between the world of fashion and the department’s greatest masterpieces, from Byzantium to the Second Empire. Each of these garments and accessories is on special loan from the most iconic fashion houses, both long-standing and recent, in Paris and throughout the world.”

Later, dinner will be served in the Cour Marly, which can be found in the museum’s Richelieu wing, before dancing at the I.M. Pei pyramid. The exhibition will then run until July 21.