Stella Tennant/DNA. Photo: Mario Testino / May 06 US Vogue

Sure, we all love to see what everyone wears every year at the Costume Institute Gala – it is the Academy Awards for the fashion world, after all. But sometimes we forget that the Gala also rings in a wonderful exhibition at the Met.

This year’s theme is “AngloMania,” which means big designers like Galliano and McQueen, and even bigger gowns like the Dior Couture beauty above. The exhibit focuses on British fashion from 1976 to 2006, and juxtaposes tradition with transgression, so if huge historical gowns aren’t your thing, go to see the original punk, courtesy of Miss Vivienne Westwood. Basically, where else are you going to go to see historic English costumes and the work of Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Stephen Jones, Philip Treacy, and Manolo Blahnik all in one place?

May 1 through September 4, in the English period rooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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