One of the largest fashion exhibits of the year announced its 2026 theme on Monday.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the Met Gala’s theme will be “Costume Art,” which aims to make a connection more literal than ever, pairing garments with objects from across the museum to show how fashion has long been intertwined with different art forms.
The connections that will be drawn between artworks and garments will range, curators said in a statement, “from the formal to the conceptual, the aesthetic to the political, the individual to the universal, the illustrative to the symbolic, and the playful to the profound.”
It’s also a show that will have a new home. “Costume Art,” which opens to the public May 10, will inaugurate new gallery space occupying some 12,000 square feet (1,115 square meters), right off the museum’s Great Hall.
Max Hollein, CEO and director of the Met, said in an interview ahead of Monday’s announcement that he hopes the exhibit will take visitors to the New York museum on a (very fashionable) journey through art history, where they will see connections throughout.
“It’s a show that can really live in fascinating ways at the museum and can pull from all different areas of our collection — paintings, sculpture, drawings,” Hollein said.
“I hope we all agree that fashion is art,” Hollein added. “But actually I think the exhibition … will make it obvious how fashion is actually happening, so to say, all across the museum and in all different mediums already.”
The new show will examine the dressed body, and will be organized thematically by different body types, according to the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, Andrew Bolton. It will include the “Naked Body” and the “Classical Body,” for example, but also less expected themes like the “Pregnant Body” and the “Aging Body.”
One example: in the “Naked Body” section, a 1504 print from German artist Albrecht Dürer will be paired with spandex bodysuits by Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck from a 2009 collection that revisits the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
That means that when the A-listers come up the main steps on May 5 at the Met Gala — perhaps dressed to channel famous objects of art — they will be only feet from the exhibit, making it easier to view the art before sipping and socializing. (Gala details — such as the celebrity hosts and specific dress code — will be shared later.)
Hollein said the museum was mainly concerned with giving fashion a more prominent home — and giving regular visitors a smoother experience. In past years, long lines for fashion exhibits would snake through other galleries and create bottlenecks in inconvenient places.
The new Conde M. Nast galleries — created from what was formerly the museum’s retail store — will house not only all spring Costume Institute exhibits to come, but other shows from different parts of the museum.
Bolton said in a statement that the gallery space “will mark a pivotal moment for the department, one that acknowledges the critical role fashion plays not only within art history but also within contemporary culture.”
“Costume Art” opens to the public May 10, 2026, and runs until Jan. 10, 2027.
