Met Gala 2026 to Honor Costume Art Exhibition on May 4

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced details for its 2026 Met Gala, the annual fundraiser for the Costume Institute, set to take place on May 4 at the museum in New York City. The event will honor the spring exhibition "Costume Art," curated by Andrew Bolton, which explores the centrality of the dressed body across the museum's extensive collection spanning 5,000 years of art.

The exhibition pairs paintings, sculptures, and other objects with historical and contemporary garments from the Costume Institute, organized around thematic body types in three categories: omnipresent forms like the classical and nude body; overlooked types such as aging and pregnant bodies; and universal ones like the anatomical body. "What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body," Bolton said. "It's the common thread throughout the whole museum." He emphasized that even the nude is never truly naked, always inscribed with cultural values and ideas. The show will feature nearly 200 works alongside 200 garments and accessories, primarily from Western art, and will use innovative mannequins with mirrored faces designed...