A documentary by Andrew Rossi. Rating unavailable.

In recent years, there have been many fine docs and features on the fashion world and its deeply conflicted heroes, from Coco Chanel to Yves Saint Laurent. Despite, or perhaps due to, its narrow focus, The First Monday in May is a well-placed cut above most of them.

The title refers to the annual fundraising gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which recently morphed into the Anna Wintour Costume Center. The Manhattan event is micromanaged by Wintour herself, and the devil is certainly in the Prada-level details for the perennially bobbed Vogue editor. First Monday director Andrew Rossi, who also shot and edited much of the compellingly assembled 90-minute film, was given extraordinary access to the planning stages. But he focuses less on Wintour than on young Englishman Andrew Bolton, curator of the Met’s biggest fashion extravaganzas.

In designing China: Through the Looking Glass for the 2015 season, the appealingly self-deprecating Bolton is joined by famed Chinese film director Wong Kar-Wai, who accompanies him to Beijing, where they’re besieged by journalists and officials who challenge the show’s core cultural appropriations.

Back home, designers like John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld comment on the upcoming program and its starry, starry night. As costume-centric Aussie auteur Baz Luhrmann says, “Hey, if you have to pay Rihanna $200,000 to dance on a tabletop, so be it!” Indeed, that’s what you get at the gala. Attended by all the Clooneys, Hathaways, and Kardashians you could ever want to watch, Monday’s big night is shot with such intimate detail, you’ll feel like you were there—without having to worry about what to wear.