The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute will open its latest fashion exhibition, "Costume Art," in a new gallery space adjacent to the Great Hall, formerly the museum's gift shop. Curated by Andrew Bolton, the show features 400 objects from the permanent collection, organized thematically around the dressed body—exploring the naked, classical, anatomical, and mortal body—rather than chronologically. The exhibition aims to connect artistic representations of the body with fashion as an embodied art form.
This exhibition matters because it reframes how fashion is encountered in museums by centering the body at a time when the fashion industry has stalled on body diversity. With data showing 97.6 percent of Autumn/Winter 2026 looks cast on straight-size models and plus-size representation at just 0.3 percent, "Costume Art" offers a fundamental rethinking of clothing's relationship to the human form. By organizing garments around embodiment rather than designer or period, the show has the potential to challenge both museum conventions and industry norms.