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ith fashion's biggest event of the year being just a few days away, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art gears up for the Costume Institute’s spring 2026 exhibition, Costume Art. Starting on the 10th May, the exhibition will proudly feature nearly 400 pieces of art in the museum’s newly curated Condé M. Nast Galleries, stretching to nearly 12,000 square feet of space.
“The Met has always understood that fashion is a vital form of creative expression, one that shapes and reflects our culture,” designer Tory Burch said to Vogue. The institute this year massively regards art as one of the world’s most “political forms".
“Costume Art is inclusive and collaborative”, says Vogue writer Dodie Kazanjian after her exclusive first look at the exhibition, “And the unifying theme is the human body and how it has been depicted – dressed, undressed, decorated, honoured, injured and mourned.”
Followed by the exhibition is this year’s dress code: "Fashion is Art", considered as an exploration into seeing the dressed body as a living canvas, featuring avant-garde pieces from some of the biggest fashion houses and designers in the world.
What does that mean we will see on the night? Fashion has always mixed with the art world, seen in the likes of Versace’s classic Barocco print and Schiaparelli’s collaboration with Salvador Dalí, as well as its surrealism that progressed from the 1930s to what we still see today in their collections. Robert Wun is also a great example of fashion and art merging, with the designer revolutionising his runway looks to be expressive of art and timeless fashion, especially from his Fall/Winter24 haute couture collection “Time”.
[IMAGE-PAIR:https://mrvl4yayt74hppfr.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/article-images/1777410839516-IMG_1333.JPG|https://hebbkx1anhila5yf.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/met%20gala%20.png-LbTP1B8T1m24nWDEWsXFBD37gWOr1P.jpeg|Robert Wun and Schiaparelli designs for the Met Gala]
As ambitious as the theme, the subject is quite literally up to the designer's interpretation. This could range from the unconventional to sculptural, to eccentric and archival, or even perhaps leaving nothing to the imagination. These celebrities’ bodies will be a blank canvas, leaving designers and fashion houses carte blanche, where they and the designer will showcase their masterpiece on the red carpet.
Tyla’s Balmain look at the 2024 Met Gala “The Garden of Time” had the singer wearing a silhouette hugging dress made out of sand all the way from The Seychelles and The Sahara Desert, giving us a real-time (and moving) art piece as she posed under the lights.
This year’s gala is controversially sponsored by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, with Saint Laurent and Condé Nast as additional sponsors. But the official Co-chairs for this year will have to make do with the institute's choice for sponsorship, which caused an uproar on social media, as none other than Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams join Anna Wintour for the Gala, connecting entertainment and sport together with fashion. Of course, this is a particularly exciting moment this year, as the Met warmly welcomes Beyoncé back after a long 10-year hiatus from the annual event, where the last time she attended was 2016 for the “Manus x Machina” theme, wearing Givenchy.
In a recent Instagram post celebrating the singer's 10 years of her critically acclaimed album Lemonade, she posed in a purple Saint Lauren Spring/Summer 2026 gown accented with a Cult Gaia pearl bag, which may hint at a possible Saint Laurent collaboration for Monday.
As well as Queen B, Kidman and Williams have made their own respective appearances over the years, including last year’s gala “Superfine", with Kidman wearing Balenciaga and Williams wearing Lacoste.
All three stars are joined by this year’s Met Gala Host Committee, with co-chairs including the newly appointed head of editorial content of American Vogue, Chloe Malle, the recently engaged Zoë Kravitz, who has just announced her engagement with Harry Styles, as well as artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, LISA and Yseult, followed by models like Alex Consani and Paloma Elsesser, sports player A’ja Wilson, and other stars such as this year’s Golden Globe award winner Teyana Taylor, Gwendoline Christie, Elizabeth Debicki and Misty Copeland.
So who’s actually invited? Lady Gaga, Zendaya, Naomi Campbell, Miley Cyrus, Cardi B, Anok Yai, Gigi Hadid, Rosalia and Anne Hathaway are just a few who have all appeared on the guest list for 2026.
And what brands can we expect to see and host these stunning celebrities? Last year, Marc Jacobs took centre stage, dressing the likes of Rihanna, Teyana Taylor, and Doja Cat in dandy, sophisticated fashion and pristine manner. Louis Vuitton also made a grand appearance, dressing the creative director himself, Pharrell Williams, Doechii, and Sabrina Carpenter in pearls, monograms and tailcoats.
As Saint Laurent is sponsoring this year, we hope to see the fashion house on the red carpet on the special night. We also expect to see Schiaparelli, as they’ve had quite a year already with their Haute Couture Spring/Summer collection earlier this year, which has already made a few cameos on the red carpet.
The Met Gala livestream will be broadcast exclusively live by Vogue across all platforms from 11 pm GMT.
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