Met Gala 2026: When the Dress Code Was Art History
The 2026 Met Gala dress code was Fashion Is Art, and guests answered with paintings, sculptures and bodies. The night raised a record $42 million.
Every year the Met Gala asks hundreds of famous people to read a theme and wear an answer. The 2026 dress code, "Fashion Is Art," asked for something harder than costume. Guests had to choose a work of art, a period or a body, and make it walk up the museum steps. The evening was held on Monday, May 4, to open the Costume Institute's Costume Art exhibition, and many guests answered it with a named painting, sculptor or period.
The facts below come from CNN's red carpet coverage, the Met's announcement and the museum's pages.
The setup
The Met said the dress code invited guests to express their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form and to celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history. The co-chairs were Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour. Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz co-chaired the host committee. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos served as honorary chairs and lead sponsors.
CNN reported that the gala raised a record $42 million, up from last year's record of $31 million, as announced by the museum at a press conference before the event. The proceeds go to the Costume Institute, which depends on the evening for its annual funding.
Paintings on the carpet
The most direct approach was to quote a painting, and several guests did. Lauren Sánchez Bezos wore a navy Schiaparelli gown that CNN says riffed on John Singer Sargent's portrait Madame X, a depiction of a socialite that caused its own scandalous reception. Lena Dunham's Valentino dress took its red from the blood spray in Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes. Emma Chamberlain wore a hand-painted custom Mugler gown that flowed into deep watery blues, a nod to Impressionism.
Hunter Schafer channeled Gustav Klimt in a Prada look. The floral embroidery on Maya Hawke's Prada dress was loosely inspired by the Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Suki Waterhouse's draped Michael Kors dress drew on terracotta classical statues. Amy Sherald, a painter and a member of the host committee, worked with Thom Browne on a custom look inspired by one of her own paintings, with Browne's dachshund bag.
Troye Sivan went to a different part of art history. He wore denim with a fur-trimmed Prada coat, and told Vanity Fair he was inspired by figures from New York's downtown art scene, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz. Luke Evans channeled the Finnish artist Tom of Finland in a leather studded suit by Palomo Spain.
The body as material
The dress code's logic led many designers to the body itself. Beyoncé returned to the Gala for the first time in ten years in a skin-baring skeleton gown by Olivier Rousteing, and brought her daughter Blue Ivy for her Met Gala debut. Lisa wore a Robert Wun gown with extra pairs of arms holding up a billowing white veil. Heidi Klum came as a living statue, built with her longtime collaborator Mike Marino. Bad Bunny appeared almost unrecognizable, aged several decades in custom Zara. The retailer called the look a considered reflection on what aging looks like and what it means, a response to the exhibition's theme of the body across time.
Chase Infiniti wore a multicolored Thom Browne gown inspired by the female form, made with more than 1.5 million sequins. Venus Williams wore a Swarovski gown inspired by a Robert Pruitt portrait of her that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Olivia Wilde's custom Thom Browne dress, CNN says, was an ode to construction, with an exposed tan leather pannier, a petticoat and a tulle train.
Craft, in hours
Several brands put a number on the labor. Kylie Jenner's Schiaparelli illusion dress featured 10,000 pearls and took 11,000 hours of embroidery, according to CNN. Margot Robbie's golden lamé Chanel gown took more than 761 hours to craft. Manish Malhotra's cape took more than 960 hours to make, and he said it paid homage to the artisans, tailors and design team he works with. Cara Delevingne's Ralph Lauren dress carried 10,000 hand-embroidered crystals.
Those figures are claims from the houses and are repeated here as reported. They matter because they show where the evening's energy went. A brand that can say a dress took 11,000 hours is telling the audience that the dress is a work of art in the old sense, made slowly by hand.
SZA took the opposite route. Her Bode dress repurposed garments found on eBay. Sabrina Carpenter's Dior gown was made of film strips, a nod to cinema.
The argument outside the gates
The evening was not free of controversy. CNN reported protests planned around New York City over the event's primary sponsors, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, and one protester tried to breach the perimeter before police stopped them. Sánchez Bezos's Madame X gown, in the outlet's reading, seemed to send a message of its own.
The exhibition that the Gala opens is a separate object. Costume Art is on view through Jan. 10, 2027, free with museum admission. The dress code was a way of telling the guests what the museum wanted them to think about. The exhibition is where that thought gets tested.
What the carpet taught
Three lessons came out of the night. First, an art-historical reference works best when it is specific. A named painting, a named sculptor and a named model of a body are easier to read than a general mood. Second, the best looks were built around an idea the designer could explain in a sentence. Third, guests who involved artists, as Sherald did, found a way to put the work in the room.
The carpet will be forgotten by next May. The photographs will not. A Wikimedia Commons user photographed guests from the evening and released the images under a free license, so the record of the night is not only in the hands of the magazines.
FAQ
When was the 2026 Met Gala?
Monday, May 4, 2026, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What was the dress code?
"Fashion Is Art," tied to the Costume Art exhibition.
How much did it raise?
CNN reported a record $42 million.
Who co-chaired?
Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour.
Sources
*Cover photo: SWinxy, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guests_at_the_2026_Met_Gala_487.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guests_at_the_2026_Met_Gala_487.jpg)* (CC BY 4.0).*