The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its 2026 exhibition "Costume Art," which will inaugurate the new Condé M. Nast Galleries. Curator Andrew Bolton explains the show will focus on the dressed body's connection to art history, emphasizing materiality and corporeality over visuality. A key preview piece is a Y/Project suit from FW22, designed by Glenn Martens and Jean Paul Gaultier, featuring a trompe-l'oeil nude male figure that will be displayed alongside a 1st–2nd century CE marble statue of Diadoumenos. Other sections include "The Naked Body," "The Aging Body," and "The Anatomical Body."
The exhibition matters because it reframes fashion as an embodied art form within a major museum context, challenging traditional hierarchies between art and dress. The Y/Project suit, created shortly before the brand's closure and Martens' departure, exemplifies how fashion can engage with art historical themes like the classical body and optical illusion. By positioning garments alongside ancient sculptures, the Met's Costume Institute continues to blur boundaries between fashion and fine art, while the new 12,000 sq. ft. Condé M. Nast Galleries signal a permanent expansion of the institute's exhibition space.