MET Costume preview

Vogue has published a first look at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring 2026 show “Costume Art,” less than three weeks before the exhibition opens on May 10. (vogue.com) The exhibition will pair garments from The Costume Institute with artworks from across The Met to trace what the museum calls “the centrality of the dressed body.” It runs at The Met Fifth Avenue from May 10, 2026, through January 10, 2027. (metmuseum.org; metmuseum.org) Vogue’s preview is photographed by Ethan James Green and includes looks tied to Olivier Theyskens, Alexander McQueen, and Loewe, giving the public an early sense of how the museum plans to stage fashion beside art. (vogue.com) The show is the first exhibition in The Met’s new galleries for fashion displays, a nearly 12,000-square-foot space next to the Great Hall. The museum says the galleries will host the annual spring Costume Institute show and other exhibitions about the intersection of fashion and art. (metmuseum.org; metmuseum.org) The Met said in February that “Costume Art” will feature nearly 400 objects from its collection. Those pairings are organized around thematic “body types,” moving from formal and aesthetic links to political and symbolic ones. (metmuseum.org; metmuseum.org) Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, has framed the show as part of a longer argument inside museums about whether fashion is treated as art or as applied design. The museum’s description says the exhibition focuses primarily on Western art from prehistory to the present. (vogue.sg; metmuseum.org) The Met Gala arrives first, on Monday, May 4, as the fundraiser tied to the exhibition. The museum says Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour will co-chair the event, with “Fashion is Art” as the dress code. (metmuseum.org) That gala money is not symbolic. The Met says the annual benefit provides The Costume Institute’s primary source of funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, and operations. (metmuseum.org) The preview lands as The Met rolls out a broader spring 2026 program built around major cross-department shows, including a Raphael exhibition already on view and “Musical Bodies,” opening June 7. In that lineup, “Costume Art” is positioned not as a side event to the gala, but as one of the museum’s headline exhibitions for the season. (metmuseum.org) So the Vogue images are doing two jobs at once: teasing celebrity-season fashion before May 4 and introducing a museum exhibition that opens six days later. By May 10, the question will shift from what guests wear on the steps to how The Met argues that clothing belongs in the galleries. (vogue.com; metmuseum.org)