ART: becomes them

Days after the much-awaited Met Gala 2026 painted a swathe of color on the steps of the New York Metropolitan Theater, the visual shock of framing fashion as art form has yet to subside.

This year’s exhibition, themed “Costume Art,” welcomed stellar gala attendees garbed in the required dress code, “Fashion is Art.”

Taking inspiration from art by the likes of Gustav Klimt, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, to sculptures by Allen Jones and even the Winged Victory of Samothrace on display in the Louvre, many of the Met Gala attendees this year, indeed, ignored restraint.

While standout outfits ruled the red carpet for sheer artistry, others had fashion wags snipping and sniping.

For instance, Hunter Schafer, Heidi Klum and Gracie Abrams were widely cited by fashion experts for their near-perfect recreations of specific art pieces, but some saw these as too literal. Schafer’s look directly referenced Gustav Klimt’s Mäda Primavesi. Klum’s custom look was an incredibly literal transformation into Raffaele Monti’s Veiled Vestal sculpture. Abrams’ gown was a direct homage to Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (the “Woman in Gold”).

While some admired American Vogue’s head of editorial content Chloe Malle’s custom gown by Brooklyn-based designer Colleen Allen, which “beautifully captured the distinctive marigold hue of the sleeping muse’s dress” in Frederic Leighton’s Flaming June, others thought it was too simple.

Clashing opinions aside, the event on the whole met everyone’s expectations for brilliance, beauty and the bizarre (and here we show some of the standouts we picked, for various subjective reasons).

Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour led the evening as co-chairs. Zoë Kravitz and Anthony Vaccarello headed the host committee, joined by a roster that included Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Misty Copeland, Teyana Taylor, Gwendoline Christie, Sam Smith and Angela Bassett — a lineup engineered for both relevance and reach.

For all the grumbles about a “disappointing” lack of thematic commitment from some guests compared to previous years, as well as other controversial observations including the “heavy involvement of ‘Silicon Valley money’ specifically from honorary chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, the Met Gala met its core target.

The event reportedly raised an unprecedented $42 million for the Costume Institute, shattering the previous 2025 record of $31 million. Perhaps the staggering ticket prices, at $100,000 per person, and table costs starting at $350,000, had much to do with it.

The Gala also successfully inaugurated the new 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries, providing a permanent home for the Costume Institute just off the Met’s Great Hall.

Curator Andrew Bolton organized the exhibition of over 400 works into body types prevalent in art across the museum, such as the “Classical Body,” “Naked Body” and the “Aging Body.”

The “Costume Art” exhibit runs from 10 May 2026 through 10 January 2027.