Florals for spring may be groundbreaking, but some flowering plants are not.
On Monday, the Met Gala 2024 celebrated the debut of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” with the theme “Garden of Time.”
But Vogue’s global editorial director Anna Wintour recently revealed — somewhat ironically this year, considering the theme — that a trio of flowering plants is banned from the Met Gala menu: garlic, onion and chives.
“Those are three things I’m not particularly fond of,” the 74-year-old fashion guru, who has been overseeing the event since she became co-chair in 1995, told Jenna Bush Hager on “The Today Show.”
Wintour’s well-manicured thumb is on every single aspect of the event, from the hand-selected guest list to the food served inside at a seated dinner, the latter a part of the inside celebration that fans don’t get to see.
Josh Jackson, executive chef/owner proprietor of Great Taste Catering in Los Angeles, speculated that it’s a personal choice for Wintour to ban certain foods.
“She doesn’t want the food to affect the breath of the celebrity guests. Also, there are several people that are actually allergic to the allium family of bulbous plants, which is rare but possible,” Jackson told Parade. Alliums include the three previously mentioned plants, as well as shallots, leeks and scallions.
“But that’s maybe a stretch,” Jackson continued. “The real reason must be she doesn’t want to see chives in the guests’ teeth. It’s understandable.”
No garlic breath on the red carpet for these A-listers!
Wintour also has a longtime ban on parsley — because it can easily get stuck in your teeth — as well as bruschetta because it’s messy and can ruin someone’s outfit.
This year’s super-secret menu by caterer Olivier Cheng was created to make the meal “a bit romantic and ethereal, yet focused on the best seasonal ingredients,” he told Vogue.
“Drawing on inspiration from the lush gardens and palaces of Sleeping Beauty’s fantasy world, we really aimed to build our own bite-sized fairytale.”
Among the menu items, as revealed by Vogue:
This year’s Met Gala co-hosts were Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth.