The Met Gala is back with live events scheduled for 2021 and 2022

New York is coming back in spectacular fashion.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art resumes its annual star-studded Met Gala with red carpet celebrations in September and next May to kick off a two-part museum exhibition. The costumed gala — a major fund-raising event for the Met’s Costume Institute — was nixed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Because of continuing restrictions, this year’s gala will be a “more intimate” version of the roughly 550-person gatherings ordinarily held the first Monday in May, but no less fashion-fabulous.

On Sept. 13, there’ll be an introduction to a museum exhibition called “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” The showcase celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Costume Institute.

Curator Andrew Bolton described the showing as “a modern vocabulary of American fashion based on the expressive qualities of clothing as well as deeper associations with issues of equity, diversity and inclusion.”

Lady Gaga attends the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala on May 6, 2019. (Charles Sykes/)

Next year’s gala advances that exhibition with a complementary exhibit titled “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.” The ball will take place May 5, 2022, and is expected to be a grand leap into the post-pandemic era.

Bolton said the presentation will “further investigate the evolving language of American fashion through a series of collaborations with American film directors.”

“Queen & Slim” filmmaker Melina Matsoukas and cinematographer Bradford Young, whose works include “Selma” and “When They See Us,” are slated to contribute.

Both exhibitions will remain in place through Sept. 5, 2022.

There’s been no word so far on celebrities expected to attend either gala, though past visitors have included Cher, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Chadwick Boseman, Lady Gaga, Tom Brady, Jennifer Lopez and a smattering of reality TV stars. Donald and Melania Trump were engaged at the ball in 2004. Vogue editor Anna Wintour oversees the guest list.

“Fashion is both a harbinger of cultural shifts and a record of the forces, beliefs and events that shape our lives,” Met Director Max Hollein said in a statement Monday. “This two-part exhibition will consider how fashion reflects evolving notions of identity in America and will explore a multitude of perspectives through presentations that speak to some of the complexities of history with powerful immediacy.”

Previous Met Gala themes have included “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” an ode to Jacqueline Kennedy, “Punk: Chaos to Couture” and a controversial 2018 look at “Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” that some criticized as being distasteful.

“The Met Gala cowards would never have dared do this to Islam or Judaism,” TV pundit Piers Morgan tweeted at the time. “Shame on them for lampooning Catholicism.”

Others have faulted exhibitions, including a 2015 theme called “China: Through the Looking Glass,” as examples of cultural appropriation. But fashionistas view the gala as an opportunity to push boundaries and confront taboos. Boy-band superstar Harry Styles showed up up to the last Met Gala with his fingernails painted, wearing a sheer blouse, high heels and a pearl earring.

Tickets for the invite-only event are hard to come by and not easily affordable. The New York Times reported in 2019 that individual tickets sold for $35,000 and tables fetched up to $300,000. Ticket sales benefit the Costume Institute, which is self-funded.

With News Wire Services