Beyoncé and Anna Wintour set Met Gala Theme 2026 for May 4
The met gala theme 2026 now has a date, a dress code and a commercial scale: the May 4 event will center on “Costume Art,” with a “Fashion is Art” dress code. Beyoncé and Anna Wintour are among the co-chairs, and the benefit will again function as a fundraising machine for the Costume Institute.
Costume Art at the Met
The spring exhibition behind the theme pairs about 200 art objects with 200 garments, and it will open to the public on May 10. Andrew Bolton curated it with an emphasis on body positivity, using 25 new mannequins and digital scans of 9 real-life people, including Sinéad Burke and Yseult.
That choice puts the dress code in direct conversation with the exhibition instead of treating the red carpet as a separate spectacle. The Conde M. Nast Galleries will debut with the show, filling nearly 12,000 square feet off the museum’s Great Hall and giving the Met a new stage for an annual event that has been central to the institution’s fundraising.
Bezos Support and Tables
The exhibition and benefit are made possible by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, a sponsorship layer that sits above the familiar guest-list economy of the night. Individual tickets cost $100,000, and a table of 10 starts at $350,000, putting the gala in the top tier of museum fundraising and corporate hospitality.
Last year the evening brought in more than US$31 million, which explains why the Met keeps pushing the format toward bigger sponsorship, tighter guest access and a more choreographed public image. About 400 guests will attend this year, a smaller room than the public profile suggests and a reminder that the gala’s reach runs far beyond the people inside it.
Wintour, Kravitz and the Host Committee
Anna Wintour, Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams are the co-chairs for 2026, while Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz chair the host committee. Sabrina Carpenter, Teyana Taylor, Lena Dunham and Misty Copeland are also on that committee, giving the event a roster built to serve both fashion credibility and cultural range.
The Met Gala started in 1948 as a Manhattan society midnight supper, and it has since become the Costume Institute’s biggest annual engine. This year’s setup is straightforward: the Met is selling access at six figures, launching a new gallery space and using the gala to turn “Costume Art” into the opening argument for the exhibition’s public run.
