Met Gala: who, when

The 2026 Met Gala is set for Monday, May 4, with The Metropolitan Museum of Art framing the night around a dress code of “Fashion is Art.” (metmuseum.org) Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour will co-chair the fundraiser, which supports The Costume Institute at the museum’s Fifth Avenue building in New York. (metmuseum.org) The gala ties to a new spring exhibition, “Costume Art,” opening May 10 and running through January 10, 2027. The show will pair nearly 400 garments and artworks from across the museum’s collection. (metmuseum.org) The Met says the exhibition will be the first staged in its new nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries next to the Great Hall. The museum also says the show will examine “the centrality of the dressed body.” (metmuseum.org; metmuseum.org) That museum-side focus extends beyond celebrity arrivals. Preview coverage from The Associated Press says the exhibition will use more varied mannequin body types, a shift in how the Costume Institute presents fashion on the body. (apnews.com) The host committee stretches well beyond fashion insiders. The Met named Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Misty Copeland, Paloma Elsesser, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, A’ja Wilson, Angela Bassett, Amy Sherald, and others to support the evening. (metmuseum.org) Vanity Fair reported that Ashley Graham is among the livestream hosts for the night, alongside other presenters covering arrivals outside the museum. That keeps the public-facing part of the gala centered on the red carpet even though the dinner itself remains closed to cameras. (vanityfair.com; metmuseum.org) The Met Gala began in 1948 as a midnight supper with $50 tickets, according to the museum’s history of the event. It has since become the Costume Institute’s signature annual benefit and one of fashion’s biggest celebrity stages. (metmuseum.org) This year’s gala lands six days before the exhibition opens to the public, turning one invitation-only night on May 4 into the launch point for a museum show that will stay up until January. (metmuseum.org)