Once upon a Time in Gala-Land (opens in new tab)

Anna Wintour attending the Met Gala in 1995. How a midnight dinner for fashion insiders became a multi-million-dollar media spectacle, culminating with this year’s sponsorship by none other than the Bezoses By William D. Cohan In the past five years, the so-called Met Gala—the annual one-day benefit for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Fifth Avenue—has raised some $113 million, including a record $31 million last May. That’s a lot of money, and more than any other c...