Met Gala to celebrate China this spring

Combining fashion and film, the spring exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute will be "China: Through the Looking Glass," the museum said Thursday during a preview in Beijing.

The show will run from May 7 to Aug. 16 in the Met's Chinese Galleries and in the Anna Wintour Costume Center. It will feature more than 130 fashions juxtaposed with traditional Chinese art pieces in jade, lacquer and porcelain.

In addition, a montage of film clips curated by the Chinese filmmaker Wong Kar Wai will speak to influence of cinema on fashion in the West, according to a museum statement released after several pieces were displayed at the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City.

Among the pieces shown in Beijing were a blue-and-white, porcelain-inspired dress created by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel in 1984 and a look Tom Ford designed for his last collection at Yves Saint Laurent in 2004, influenced by the last Chinese Emperor Puyi's dragon robe.

The Costume Institute's star-studded annual benefit May 4 will celebrate the exhibition's opening. Fashion tycoon Silas Chou will serve as honorary chair. The co-chairs will be Jennifer Lawrence, Gong Li, Marissa Mayer, Wendi Murdoch and Wintour.

Previous Met Gala themes have included Punk: Chaos to Couture (2013) and Charles James: Beyond Fashion (2014).