The 2026 Met Gala will take place on Monday, May 4, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, with red carpet arrivals officially beginning at 5:30 p.m. and continuing for several hours as celebrities trickle in. The event raises funds for the museum's Costume Institute and celebrates the new spring exhibition "Costume Art," with a dress code of "Fashion is Art." Co-chairs include Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, with a host committee chaired by Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz, and the event is made possible by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.
The Met Gala matters because it is the most high-profile annual fundraiser in the fashion and art world, drawing global media attention and generating significant revenue for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. The event also sets cultural trends and sparks public discourse on the intersection of fashion, art, and celebrity, while the accompanying exhibition shapes scholarly and popular understanding of costume as an art form.