The 2026 Met Gala is taking shape. Not only have we been alerted to the hotly-anticipated theme, but we’ve also been given insight into exactly who will walk the Met steps, with the year’s co-chairs and host committee revealed.<\/p>\n
Thematically, this year\u2019s concept signals a shift in how fashion is positioned within The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Titled ‘Costume Art’, the theme accompanies the Costume Institute\u2019s landmark exhibition of the same name \u2014 one that will place fashion at the physical and philosophical centre of The Met for the first time. Rather than focusing solely on garments, Costume Art turns its attention to the dressed body itself, reframing fashion as a fully fledged artistic practice.<\/p>\n
Below, everything we know so far about the 2026 Met Gala.<\/p>\n
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Beyonc\u00e9, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams will serve as co-chairs for the 2026 Met Gala. Fans will know this will mark the first time in 10 years that Beyonc\u00e9 has attended the Met Gala, while Kidman and Williams have been more regular fixtures in recent years.<\/p>\n
Joining them, Anthony Vaccarello and Zo\u00eb Kravtiz will co-chair the 2026 Met Gala Host Committee, with other members including Sabrina Carpenter, Misty Copeland, Paloma Elsesser, and LISA. We’ll see more celebrities added to this list early next year.<\/p>\n
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Next year\u2019s Gala will honour the Costume Institute\u2019s forthcoming exhibition ‘Costume Art’, which will inaugurate the new Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries \u2014 nearly 12,000 square feet of dedicated space adjacent to The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Great Hall.<\/p>\n
Curated by Andrew Bolton, ‘Costume Art’ is a sweeping investigation into \u201cthe centrality of the dressed body\u201d across the museum\u2019s 5,000 years of art. Paintings, sculptures, and objects from every curatorial department will be paired with both historical and contemporary garments, demonstrating something that Bolton argues has been true all along: fashion has always been at the centre of the museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body,\u201d Bolton says. The exhibition asserts that even the so-called nude body in art is never truly naked \u2014 it is always inscribed with cultural meaning.<\/p>\n
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The dress code for the 2026 Met Gala has not yet been announced.<\/a> As always, guests \u2014 and their ateliers \u2014 will need to wait for Vogue to release the official guidance. But given the nature of the exhibition, we can expect a dress code that encourages guests to grapple with the relationship between the body and the garment, or even challenge the long-held hierarchy between art and fashion. In other words, expect some stellar looks<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In many ways, Costume Art marks a turning point for the Costume Institute. The opening of the Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries signals a monumental shift, in which fashion is no longer a department relegated to the museum\u2019s basement, but is being placed at the heart of The Met.<\/p>\n Bolton describes the exhibition as transformative not only for his department, but for fashion more generally, re-centering the dressed body as an artistic subject. Ultimately, the significance of the 2026 theme lies in this reframing: Costume Art doesn\u2019t elevate fashion by stripping it of the body, but by returning the body to the centre of the conversation. It challenges the long-standing hierarchy that separates fashion from fine art, arguing for an equivalency rooted in lived experience rather than detached aesthetics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As always, the Met Gala will be held on the first Monday in May \u2014 in 2026, that falls on May 4. The Costume Art exhibition opens to the public on May 10, 2026, and will run through January 10, 2027.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\nWhy is this particular Met Gala theme so significant?<\/h2>\n
When is the 2026 Met Gala?<\/h2>\n