The Met Gala has a long-standing tradition of coming up with ornate themes which challenge guests and designers to use their creativity and interpretation in order to come up with an outfit that will impress and stand out to the public and medial eye. The Met Gala 2019 was no different in its elaborate natured theme based around Susan Song's influential 1964 essay titled "Notes on Camp."

The theme "Camp: Notes on Fashion" was not referring to summer camp, but rather to a state of a kind of exaggeration and visual boisterousness. The definition of "camp" in this context, like the theme, is open for interpretation but ultimately tends to come down to a form of visual aesthetic that is unexpected. To put it into the simplest terms that I can think of, it is not the opposite of "basic," but the opposite of a basic attempt to be unconventional. A true non-mainstream production, versus an attempt that turns out to be rather predictable.