Met Gala 2026 unveils 'Fashion is Art' dress code
The dress code for the 2026 Met Gala has been unveiled.
Vogue announced that this year's Met Gala will carry the theme "Fashion is Art," celebrating the Metropolitan Museum of Art's spring 2026 exhibition titled "Costume Art."
Andrew Bolton of the Costume Institute explained that the exhibit's theme explores the “centrality of the dressed body," as a dress code, celebrities and their designers are expected to show how they use the body as the blank canvas.
“What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body. It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum, which is really what the initial idea for the exhibition was," Bolton said, per Vogue.
The exhibition will showcase garments from the Costume Institute, alongside paintings, sculptures, and other artworks covering around 5,000 years of art history.
According to Vogue, guests can interpret this wearable art through various lenses, including naked dressing, Cubist-influenced ensembles, and avant-garde statement pieces.
It added that the guest list for the Met will be kept under wraps until the day of the affair on May 4.
Earlier, it was revealed that the co-chairs for the 2026 Met Gala are Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour.
It also shared that the Gala Host Committee, which will be co-chaired by Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz, will include Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Elizabeth Debicki, Lena Dunham, Paloma Elsesser, LISA, Chloe Malle, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, Lauren Wasser, Anna Weyant, A’ja Wilson, and Yseult.
Last year's dress code was "Tailored for You," which reflected the institute's exhibit, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Styles," that drew inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.
