Met Gala Dress Code Set as 'Fashion Is Art'

The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday announced the dress code for the 2026 Met Gala: "fashion is art." The guideline will serve as the only instruction for guests preparing for the Costume Institute benefit. The museum said the instruction invites guests "to express their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form and celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history." The phrase leaves plenty of room for interpretation.

The gala traditionally serves as a curtain-raiser for the museum's spring fashion exhibition. This year's show, titled "Costume Art," opens on May 10 and pairs almost 200 artworks from the Met's collection with approximately 200 historical and contemporary garments and accessories.

The exhibition will inaugurate the new Condé M. Nast Galleries, a nearly 11,500-square-foot permanent home for the Costume Institute, named after the founder of the media giant Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue, The New Yorker and GQ.

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