Beyoncé, Venus Williams, are among the co-chairs for the 2026 Met Gala.
On February 23, it was announced that 2026 Met Gala promises to blur the boundaries between style and fine art.
This year’s exhibition theme is “Costume Art,” and the official dress code for the evening is, “Fashion Is Art,” which invites guests to interpret fashion as a creative medium.
Returning Monday, May 4, the annual fundraiser marks the opening of the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition.
Every year the Met Gala has different theme, centered on the exhibition the Costume Institute displays in conjunction with the gala.
“Celebrate fashion as an art form this spring at The Met,” an Instagram post about the exhibit from the museum read. “Focusing primarily on Western art from prehistory to the present, the show will explore artistic representations of the dressed body, pairing fashions and artworks from the Museum’s vast collection to highlight the inherent relationship between clothing and the body.”
The code seems to have been chosen for maximum flexibility. And, says Andrew Bolton, curator of the Met’s Costume Institute: “Hopefully, it will put an end to the rather obsolete ‘is fashion art?’ debate once and for all.”
The Costume Art theme, Bolton says, is to examine “the dressed body” in all its aspects, and to make the point that not only is fashion art – something previous shows have demonstrated – but that art is fashion.
In previous years attendees have worn costume-like pieces for the “Camp: Notes on Fashion” event, Chanel designs for the gala that honored designer Karl Lagerfeld, and pieces with religious nods for “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”
Beyoncé and Williams join Nicole Kidman and Anna Wintour as co-chairs for the glitzy New York bash.