The 2026 Met Gala will take place on the first Monday in May at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, supporting the Costume Institute. The spring exhibition is titled "Costume Art" and will be the first to occupy the new Condé M. Nast Galleries. The dress code is "Fashion is Art," inviting guests to explore fashion as an embodied art form. Co-chairs include Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos as honorary chairs. The event will be livestreamed by Vogue, hosted by Ashley Graham, La La Anthony, Cara Delevingne, and Emma Chamberlain.
The Met Gala matters because it is both a major fundraiser—raising a record $31 million last year—and a global pop culture spectacle that bridges fashion, art, and celebrity. The exhibition "Costume Art" signals a new era for the Costume Institute in its dedicated galleries, emphasizing the intersection of fashion and visual art. However, the event also sparks controversy over wealth inequality, with critics calling for boycotts and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani declining to attend, highlighting tensions between elite cultural institutions and public sentiment.