2026 Met Gala opens Costume Art exhibit, stars arrive on Fashion is Art carpet

The Met Gala turned its cobblestone carpet into a global stage on Monday night, opening the Costume Institute’s new Costume Art exhibition and signaling how deeply the museum now shapes celebrity branding and luxury culture. The dress code, Fashion is Art, matched the institution’s message: the gala is not just a party, but the Costume Institute’s main annual funding engine for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and operations.

The exhibition itself gives the theme real weight. Costume Art opens at The Met Fifth Avenue on May 10 and runs through January 10, 2027, with nearly 400 objects from The Met’s collection paired with artworks to trace the relationship between clothing, the body and art history. The museum also used the night to inaugurate its nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries beside the Great Hall, another sign that the event is now as much about institutional expansion as red-carpet spectacle.

The arrivals began with red carpet livestream coverage at 5:30 p.m. EDT, followed by official coverage at 6 p.m. ET, and the guest list delivered the usual collision of fashion houses, pop power and internet gravity. Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour co-chaired the gala, while Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz led the host committee. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos served as honorary chairs and lead sponsors, a role that drew boycott calls from some New Yorkers and underscored how closely the gala’s glamour is now tied to the economics and politics of wealth.

The night’s most visible looks split into two camps: the outfits that advanced the theme and the outfits designed primarily to dominate the feed. Beyoncé’s return to the Met Gala for the first time in 10 years gave the evening one of its clearest narrative arcs, a comeback that carried more cultural weight than any single costume detail. Doechii’s barefoot arrival, Heidi Klum’s statue-like presentation and Bad Bunny’s aged-up transformation all generated immediate attention, but they did so in different ways. Doechii’s look suggested anti-rules polish, Klum leaned into sculptural form, and Bad Bunny embraced transformation as performance. Those are the moments that kept the conversation moving beyond simple celebrity spotting.

Other arrivals, including Blue Ivy, Jay-Z, Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Kim Kardashian, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, filled out a carpet built to convert star power into museum relevance. That is the Met’s enduring advantage: it can turn fashion into a public argument about art, status and identity, while turning one night of spectacle into support for the year-round business of the Costume Institute. The exhibition opens next week, but the influence of the carpet on mainstream style will last far longer.