Met Gala 2026 Announces Fashion Is Art Dress Code for Costume Art

Vogue announced on Monday, Feb. 23 that the 2026 Met Gala dress code will be Fashion Is Art, setting the first Monday in May on a direct collision course with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute spring exhibition, Costume Art. The gala itself is scheduled for May 4, 2026 on the Met steps in New York, while the exhibition opens on May 10 and runs through Jan. 10, 2027.

The exhibition that the dress code reflects will inaugurate the Costume Institute’s first permanent galleries, the nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries adjacent to The Met’s Great Hall, and will present more than 400 objects, including garments from the Costume Institute’s Collection, paintings, and other works. Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Costume Institute, framed the program in elemental terms, saying, “What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body,” a line reported by E! Online from Vogue coverage. People described Bolton calling the galleries’ opening “a huge moment for the Costume Institute” and noted that Bolton organized the show around three thematic body types: those commonly represented in art, those often overlooked like aging and pregnant bodies, and universal bodies such as the anatomical body.

The Met’s social architecture for the night will pair long-time host Anna Wintour with a trio of co-chairs: Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams. E! Online and Page Six reported that Beyoncé returns to a co-chair role after a decade away from the Costume Institute benefit. Host committee rosters vary by outlet; E! Online lists ZoëKravitz, Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Teyana Taylor, Misty Copeland and Lena Dunham among others, while Billboard names Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, LISA, Sam Smith and Teyana Taylor. E! also noted that Chloe Malle, Vogue’s successor, will officially step onto the Met steps as a member of the 2026 host committee, and that Anna Wintour has previously said she has little idea of attendees’ actual outfits until they hit the steps.

Editorially, the directive Fashion Is Art is deliberately broad. Billboard called the theme one that “leaves much room for interpretation,” and E! suggested it “encourages Met Gala attendees to consider how a designer uses their body as a ‘blank canvas.’” Vogue has already curated 56 runway looks to fit the theme and pointed to performance-art runway moments as templates, from Shalom Harlow’s graffitied Alexander McQueen dress in spring 1999 to Bella Hadid’s spray-on Coperni look in 2023 and Yves Saint Laurent’s 1979 ode to Picasso’s Parade.

With the dress code revealed on Feb. 23 and the gala set for May 4, designers, stylists and hosts now have a narrow runway of weeks to translate Bolton’s proposition of the dressed body into living, moving art on the Met steps; expect sculptural silhouettes, literal performance moments and costume-inflected couture to dominate that night.