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5 Things We Learnt From The First Monday In May Met Ball Documentary

5 things we learnt from the first monday in may met ball documentary
5 things we learnt from the first monday in may met ball documentary

Anna Wintour, Andrew Bolton and Wendi Murdoch in a still from the documentary The First Monday in May. Photo: Madman films

If you've been waiting for a fashion documentary to fill the September Issue shaped hole in your binge-watching schedule, the wait is officially over! Next week, The First Monday In May is released, and it's a lavish, witty and deliciously gossipy insight into the biggest night on the fashion calendar: the Met Ball.

The documentary follows Andrew Bolton - a curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum in New York - and Anna Wintour - ahem, She Who Needs No Introduction - as they go about planning, putting together and pulling off the biggest fashion exhibition in the history of the Met and the biggest Met Gala in the history of the event, last year's China: Through The Looking Glass, an exploration of the way Chinese culture and tradition has influences Western fashion designers. But enough of that, what insider gossip can be gleaned from the documentary? We're glad you asked...

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Anna Wintour has pretty exacting demands about who she sits next to
When it comes to seating plans, the editor in chief of Vogue knows what she wants. And she wants Bradley Cooper on her left, and George Clooney on her right. Can you blame her?

5 things we learnt from the first monday in may
5 things we learnt from the first monday in may

Rihanna at last year's Met Ball. Photo: Getty

Rihanna's budget is HOW much?

The superstar Barbados singer was the A-list performer at last year's event. And although most people remember her red carpet entrance - in a custom embroidered fur cape by Chinese couturier Guo Pei - after seeing this documentary, you'll remember the fact that her budget is seriously stratospheric. "More than Kanye," Vogue US' special projects director Sylvana Ward Durrett says, almost in disbelief. Unfortunately for us snoops, the film's producers had to bleep out the exact number that Rihanna demands for a performance (even one for charity, such as the Met Gala). All we know is that it is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Gulp.

Anna Wintour is so influential, she can shut down the Metropolitan Museum for an afternoon
Towards the end of the film, the Vogue team and the Met Museum team have a tense meeting about the days leading up to the party on the first Monday in May. Anna says that she needs time for Rihanna to rehearse her set, but the Met's administrators protest that closing the gallery for the afternoon so that Rihanna can practice would effectively mean shutting down the entirety of the Met's North Wing for the day. Anna doesn't even bat a sunglass-shielded eyelid. "The public can come next week," she says.

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Andrew Bolton and Thom Browne are couple goals
One of the biggest takeaways from the documentary are just how cute the Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton and his boyfriend, fashion designer Thom Browne, are. Bolton pretty much wears only Thom Browne suits and cardigans to work, and Browne accompanies him to Beijing because Bolton is nervous about meeting with Chinese diplomats about the opening of the exhibition. The cutest thing, though, is when Browne shyly comes up to Bolton after he gives his speech launching the exhibit, and tells him how fantastic it was. Bolton is so nervous he drops his cup of tea on the floor and the pair collapse into a giggling fit. Cue: awwwww.

5 things we learnt from the first monday in may met ball documentary
5 things we learnt from the first monday in may met ball documentary

Anna Wintour at the 2015 Met Ball, in a custom Chanel haute couture dress. Photo: Getty

Even Anna Wintour wears jeans and a tee shirt sometimes

The documentary is remarkable not only for its incredible high fashion gets - Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier, Riccardo Tisci and even John Galliano grant the team interviews - but also for its access to Anna. Much of the film is spent inside her Manhattan town house, where we see how hands on she is with the Gala, meeting with Baz Luhrmann to discuss the colour of the napkins for the table setting, and watching proudly as her daughter Bee Schaffer at her final fitting for the gown she will eventually wear to the party. We're used to seeing Anna in Chanel couture, bedecked in oversized jewels and shrouded in fur coats. But in many of these scenes, she's wearing a simple pair of jeans and a grey tee shirt (although she's never not without her Venti Starbucks latte). Incroyable!

You can watch the trailer for the First Monday In May below, and you can see the documentary in cinemas on May 12.