The movie has answered the question for itself, and it has moved on to its real purpose: to offer an inside look at the creation of the Costume Institute's 2015 exhibit about fashions inspired by Chinese culture.

"[15] Time Out magazine awarded the movie four out of five stars, rated "Recommended", with critic Kate Lloyd opining that though the access granted by the documentary to the event was "captivating", the film's most compelling aspect was the exhibition being put together itself, rather than questions posed in the film's introduction about the place of fashion and celebrity in a museum: "The clothes [Bolton]'s picking are beautiful, but the majority of them are by white Western designers who openly admit to being inspired by movies and a fantasy of [China's] women, thus appropriating its culture."

Lloyd also noted that both Bolton and Wintour were shown being challenged by journalists and the exhibition's collaborators - both majority Chinese - for "playing into orientalism and stereotyping", and concluded that "whether Rossi knows it or not, this is one of the most compelling discussions of appropriation and the ignorance of the fashion world in ages.

"[16] Writing in IndieWire, journalist Kimber Myers commented that: ""The First Monday in May" also tries to answer accusations of vapidity in the fashion world by addressing a large number of issues, including cultural sensitivity, Orientalism and feminism.

However, more positively, Myers lauded Wintour's depiction in the film as a celebrated feminist trailblazer, "who wouldn't be as criticized for her ambition and demeanor if she were a man.