Met Gala 2026 sets Fashion is Art theme, launches Costume Art exhibition

The Met Gala’s Fashion Is Art dress code turned the museum’s annual fundraiser into a clear display of cultural power, with Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour serving as co-chairs and Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos listed as honorary chairs and lead sponsors. The lineup put celebrity, wealth and institutional prestige on the same stage, underscoring how the Metropolitan Museum of Art now courts fame and financing at once.

The Met said the gala’s proceeds provide the Costume Institute’s primary source of annual funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and operations, making the black-tie spectacle a financial engine as much as a social one. The livestream was scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 4, extending the event’s reach far beyond the steps of the museum and turning the night into a global broadcast for the institution’s brand.

The new spring exhibition, Costume Art, opened on May 10 and ran through January 10, 2027, with nearly 400 objects from The Met’s collection. The museum said the show explored the dressed body as an art form, pairing garments with works of art to emphasize how clothing shapes, frames and declares identity. It also inaugurated nearly 12,000 square feet of new Condé M. Nast Galleries adjacent to the Great Hall, a physical expansion that matched the ambition of the gala itself.

That combination of a larger exhibition footprint and a sponsor-heavy guest list made the pre-Gala cocktail party especially revealing. The appearance of Jeff Bezos and Stevie Nicks added to the sense that the Met had assembled a room where fashion, celebrity, corporate branding and philanthropic power met in one place. For the museum, the evening was not only about costume or spectacle; it was a reminder that elite cultural institutions depend on the same network of billionaires, stars and luxury patrons they help celebrate.