Met Gala’s new theme will celebrate ‘the body’: Understanding ‘Costume Art’

The Met Gala is less than a year away and fashion world’s anticipation for it has been momentarily quelled with the announcement of the ceremony’s next theme: Costume Art.

As with any Met theme, the latest one does not immediately register in its entirety — concealing layers of deeper meaning within itself, Met Gala’s themes are not unlike the intricate designs of costumes which many A-listers and other ranking celebrities wear to grace its red carpet each year.

While the exhibition’s curator, Andrew Bolton, described “Costume Art” as a reference to “the history of the Costume Institute”, the theme’s essence can be a lot more detailed.

A ‘transformative’ moment for fashion

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, host venue for the Met Gala, will inaugurate “the nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries, adjacent to The Met’s Great Hall”, according to Vogue. Set to launch in spring 2026, Bolton described the launch as “a huge moment for the Costume Institute. It will be transformative for our department, but I also think it’s going to be transformative to fashion more generally — the fact that an art museum like The Met is actually giving a central location to fashion.”

Hence, “Costume Art” will celebrate fashion in the manner which is afforded to great pieces of art, with specific focus on recognising the human body as its primary canvas — the way a fabric is draped and molded, like an artwork, around a person’s body will be the central tenet of the newly announced theme.

Therefore, as the exhibition’s curator, Bolton will mark “the centrality of the dressed body in the museum’s vast collection” in 2026. The fashion publication further noted that Bolton’s display will do so “by pairing paintings, sculptures, and other objects spanning the 5,000 years of art represented in The Met, alongside historical and contemporary garments from the Costume Institute.”

Why was the theme chosen

If Vogue is to be believed, and its word certainly holds significant value in the matter as its longtime boss Anna Wintour has been heading the gala for decades now, the new theme is supposed to address the obstinate division between costume and art as two parallel concepts, and subsequently bring them together with one simple choice.

“The art and fashion divide stubbornly persists despite Costume Institute exhibitions like ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,’ which was the most-visited exhibition in The Met’s history with 1.66 million visitors,” the magazine’s website stated. While Bolton proposed that “the hierarchy endures” only because fashion is inherently linked to the understanding of art.

“Fashion’s acceptance as an art form has really occurred on art’s terms,” he claimed. Bolton’s idea for “Costume Art” relentlessly insists on the significance of the body as an art form, while he considers that the art of costume or fashion “has an edge on art because it is about one’s lived, embodied experience.”

What attendees can be expected to wear

The high profile attendees for next year’s Met Gala can — or should — be expected to show up in designs which enhance and are focused on the contours and functions of the human figure.

A few examples already on display at the museum provide a glimpse into what the 2026 Met costumes should be modelled after: costumes modelled after the human body, mirroring famous works of art.