This year’s Oscars ceremony was preceded by a walk down a “champagne carpet” largely interpreted (by internet onlookers) to be more beige than bubbly. And although that was more a literal than figurative determination (the fashion was pretty spectacular), I’d like to make a prediction: this year’s Met Gala red carpet will be metaphorically beige. As in boring, bordering on irrelevant.

The Met Gala, held on the first Monday in May, is one of the biggest events on the fashion calendar. I’d speculate that even if you know nothing about fashion, you’ve heard of it. Originally dreamed up by legendary publicist Eleanor Lambert (she also launched New York Fashion Week) to raise funds for the then-new Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was, at first, a pretty sedate affair attended by the city’s socialites.