Last night, the elite from Hollywood and beyond took to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for the annual Met Gala, the red carpet of which rivals that of the Oscars for the fashion world. Co-chaired for 2026 by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, the event saw the likes of Rihanna, Sabrina Carpenter, and Zoë Kravitz take to the red carpet in their interpretation of this year’s theme: Fashion is Art.
The dress code is linked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibition, Costume Art, inviting guests to treat clothing as a living canvas and translate haute couture into wearable art.
Here’s everything you need to know about the exhibition.
Where to see the Costume Art exhibition
Curated by Andrew Bolton, Costume Art pairs historical and contemporary garments with paintings, sculptures, and objects from across the Met’s vast collection, spanning roughly 5,000 years of visual culture.
Around 400 objects are included, ranging from archival fashion to artworks across multiple departments. The exhibition is organized into thematic sections exploring different ways the human body has been represented, including categories like the Naked Body, the Classical Body, and more unexpected lenses such as aging, disability, or pregnancy.
The exhibition is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, specifically in the Costume Institute’s brand-new permanent galleries. It will run from May 10, 2026 to January 10, 2027.
This year is especially notable because Costume Art inaugurates the Met’s new 12,000-square-foot space (the Condé Nast Galleries), moving fashion displays into a more central, prominent part of the museum.
Will the exhibition tour?
Unlike touring blockbuster exhibitions, the Met’s Costume Institute shows are typically site-specific, relying on pieces from the Met’s own permanent collection. As a result, a transfer elsewhere is unprecedented and unlikely.
If you’re looking to visit a similar exhibition in the UK, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum is the most Met-like display in London right now, focusing on fashion as artistic expression with strong links to surrealist art. It’s running until November 8, 2026.
These stars wore looks inspired by the collection
Some guests took the brief very literally, and wore looks inspired by masterpieces already shown at the museum. Emma Chamberlain arrived in a look inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, swirling deep blues and luminous embroidery into a wearable night sky.
Elsewhere, Naomi Watts drew from Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch’s floral still life paintings (notably A Vase of Flowers), with cascading botanical appliqués adorning her Dior gown, and a 3D floral manicure by nail artist Iram Shelton, which reportedly took five hours.
Hunter Schafer’s Prada look was directly inspired by Gustav Klimt’s seven-foot painting Mäda Primavesi, which is part of the Met’s permanent collection. Gracie Abrams also wore a look inspired by the Austrian painter – her gold Chanel gown was a nod to Klimt’s Woman in Gold.
