Happy Monday! 

I’ve got a hodgepodge of trending items from over the weekend, but first things first: the Met Gala. Below, I have some news about that and some suggestions of people to follow for fashion takes after the event tonight. Plus, we have a fashun-forward playlist for all of us plebs to enjoy while watching fashion’s biggest night from the sidelines. Enjoy!

It is the first Monday in May, which means tonight is the Met Gala. This year’s theme is “Costume Art,” which explores the relationship between fashion, art, and the dressed body. The dress code is “Fashion is Art,” so I’m sure we’ll get plenty of museum-inspired interpretations. 

Tonight is sure to be interesting for quite a few reasons. First, Beyoncé will make her first appearance at the event in a decade, serving as one of this year’s co-chairs alongside Venus Williams, Nicole Kidman, and Anna Wintour. Since her recent tour fits have been works of costume art themselves, people are expecting a lot from Bey’s look. That’s not all they’re expecting because, despite her publicist Yvette Noel-Schure’s claims to the contrary, fans are hoping for some sort of act iii announcement today.

Next, although there’s nothing suggesting that this will happen anytime soon, the Met’s Costume Institute has been quietly saving money in the event that the Met Gala ceases to operate. The Met Gala is ultimately a benefit for the fashion and costume design wing of the museum, but it is not immune to world events, having been forced to cancel twice in the past 20 years following 9/11 and the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“I, and the museum, always wanted the department to be not as reliant on the gala every year,”  Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, told the New York Times. “The Met Gala is extraordinary, but sometimes it dwarfs everything.”

Bolton added that Anna Wintour, who stepped away from her position as editor-in-chief at Vogue last year, “takes immense pride in every year going higher and higher. But there will be a point where that’s not sustainable.”

Couple this with the skepticism and outrage over this year’s top donor Jeff Bezos. It’s no surprise that questions around the future of the Gala have been raised. The Costume Institute’s nest egg should ensure that the department has enough money for basic operating costs as early as 2028, which allows it to pull back a bit from the glitz and glam of the evening. 

As for what that means for the future of the Met Gala, one thing is for certain. With rising expectations, controversy, and costs year over year, something has to change soon. Now that there’s a new endowment, Bolton said “It’ll be interesting to see how it’s going to evolve.”

For now, we can enjoy our annual ritual of cosplaying the Fashion Police from the comfort of our own homes. And if you are looking for smart fashion creators who will give great commentary on this year’s event, may I suggest the following:

People are not happy with the sudden closure of Spirit Airlines—and it’s not just the customers who had their flights cancelled. 

The untimely demise of Spirit Airlines has become another marker of the affordability crisis for many outraged consumers online. While you may be surprised that there are so many passionate fans of the ultra-low budget airline, which is often the subject of complaints because of its lack of comfortable amenities, the death of Spirit has come to represent the latest attack on mobility among the working class. It compounds the issue of rising gas prices, which has made driving less affordable. 

Many people blame the Trump Administration and its ongoing war in Iran, which has caused fuel prices for both airlines and everyday drivers to skyrocket. Again, this moment encapsulates the growing feeling that the American people have been left behind, as affordability has become the hot topic issue going into this year’s midterm elections but has yet to be addressed in any substantial way. 

Feeling abandoned by their government and institutions, there’s a bid to reclaim the so-called people’s airline using people power. Hunter Peterson, a content creator who made a YouTube video flying Spirit for 24 hours straight last year, launched a viral crowdfunding initiative in an attempt to revive Spirit Airlines.

The site is called Let’s Buy Spirit and it already claims to have garnered $28,676,454 in pledges, although no real money has been collected yet. Peterson hopes to follow the Green Bay Packers model, which is publicly owned and funded by over 538,000 stockholders as of 2025. 

“Private equity moves fast. The cooperative bid must move faster,” the website says. 

While the interest in a collectively-owned Spirit is high, the amount of money pledged is quite short of the company’s last estimated market cap of about $50 million. Also, as Yahoo News pointed out, it is costly and time consuming for a new airline operator to acquire the necessary Air Operator's Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. So for now, it looks like everyone’s favorite cheap airline will remain dead.  

Every Monday letter gets a playlist. Today, a playlist of fashion-inspired tracks, some from Met Gala regulars.

In this week’s playlist:

Other things I want to share with you.