Idris Elba, Taylor Swift to Co-Chair Met Fashion Gala in May

The spring exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute will focus on technology's impact on fashion, and the May 2 gala benefiting the institute will be co-chaired by Idris Elba, Apple's chief design officer and a designer himself, Jonathan Ive, Taylor Swift and Anna Wintour.

Honorary chairs will be Nicolas Ghesquiere, the French fashion designer and creative director at Louis Vuitton, and fellow designers Karl Lagerfeld and Miuccia Prada.

The exhibition, which often influences the fashions worn by the rich and famous who attend the gala, is titled, "manus x machina: fashion in an age of technology." It will be on view from May 5 through Aug. 14 of next year, the museum said in a statement Tuesday.

Apple is helping fund the exhibition, which — according to a news release — "will explore the impact of new technology on fashion and how designers are reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear."

The exhibition will feature more than 100 examples, from a 1880s Worth gown to a 2015 Chanel suit. It will explore the influence of the invention of the sewing machine in the 19th century, bringing on distinctions between machine-made and handmade at the onset of mass production.

Among the designers whose work will be included: Christopher Bailey, Alber Elbaz, John Galliano, Marc Jacobs, Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin, Noa Raviv and Alexander Wang, in addition to Ghesquiere, Lagerfeld and Prada.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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