Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman among stars set for 2026 Met Gala's 'Fashion is art' theme

Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and a roster of major celebrities are set to ascend the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5 for the 2026 Met Gala, with this year's dress code asking guests to embody the idea that clothing is a work of art.

The theme aligns with the museum's spring Costume Institute exhibition and asks guests to express their relationship to fashion as an embodied art form — a designation that art historians say could reshape how mainstream culture values the craft of clothing design.

The annual event raises money for the museum's Costume Institute and this year aligns with its spring exhibition "Costume Art," which examines the dressed body as an art form. Guests are expected to arrive in either archival fashion — pieces drawn from the history of the craft — or custom-designed works created in direct collaboration with designers, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

Art historian and author Nancy Hall-Duncan said the cultural stakes are high. "Isn't that a giant step? It will indeed change perceptions," Hall-Duncan told The Associated Press, discussing how the dress code challenges longstanding hierarchies between high art and the garment trade.

The conversation linking fashion to fine art has deep roots. Elsa Schiaparelli partnered with Salvador Dalí in 1937 on a white silk dress featuring a printed lobster — one of fashion history's most cited art-world collaborations. In 1965 Yves Saint Laurent produced shift dresses carrying Piet Mondrian's color blocks directly onto fabric, and in 2002 Marc Jacobs tapped Takashi Murakami to reimagine Louis Vuitton's visual language. Alexander McQueen's Spring 1999 runway show pushed further: industrial spray-paint robots coated a white dress on a rotating platform in a moment that operated as much as performance art as fashion spectacle.

The pairing has not always been embraced by institutions. When Yves Saint Laurent became the subject of the Met's first fashion exhibit in 1983, the show drew pointed criticism from those who argued clothing did not belong alongside painting and sculpture in a serious museum context, ABC7 reported.

Public audiences can follow along starting at 4:30 p.m. via an AP News livestream from New York hotels, with Vogue's red-carpet broadcast — hosted by Ashley Graham, La La Anthony and Cara Delevingne — beginning at 6 p.m.

The Met's decision to anchor both its gala and its spring exhibition around fashion as a recognized art form comes as other major institutions make similar moves. The Louvre held its first fashion exhibition — "Louvre couture" — last year, ABC7 reported, reflecting a gradual shift in how premier art venues classify the dressed body.