The Met Announces Spring 2026 Costume Institute Show and Major New Galleries for Exhibitions Exploring the Art of Fashion

Starting May 10, 2026, Costume Art will feature artworks from across The Met collection in dialogue with garments from The Costume Institute

The show will inaugurate the new nearly 12,000-square-foot Galleries adjacent to the Great Hall, which will display The Costume Institute’s annual spring show and be named for the late Condé M. Nast, in recognition of a lead gift from the company

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today The Costume Institute’s spring 2026 exhibition, Costume Art, which will examine the centrality of the dressed body, juxtaposing objects from across the Museum’s vast collection with historical and contemporary garments from The Costume Institute.

The exhibition will inaugurate major new Galleries adjacent to the Great Hall, which will display The Costume Institute’s annual spring exhibition. In recognition of a significant lead gift from Condé Nast, the nearly 12,000-square-foot space will be named for the company’s founder, the late Condé M. Nast. Additional generous contributions toward the renovation are provided by Thom Browne, and Michael Kors and Lance Le Pere. Further support is provided by Met Trustee Aerin Lauder, Tory Burch LLC, Nancy C. and Richard R. Rogers, as well as Met Trustee Amy Griffin and John Griffin.

Focusing primarily on Western art from prehistory to the present, Costume Art will be organized into a series of thematic body types that reflect their ubiquity and endurance through time and space. These comparisons will highlight the inextricable relationship between clothing and the body and reveal that artistic representations of the body are shaped by the garments that clothe them and that the garments, in turn, are shaped by the bodies which they clothe. The show will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue from May 10, 2026, through January 10, 2027.

To celebrate the opening of the spring 2026 exhibition, The Costume Institute Benefit (also known as The Met Gala®) will take place on Monday, May 4. The event’s co-chairs and honorary chairs will be announced in the coming months, along with members of the Gala Host Committee. The Met Gala® takes place annually on the first Monday in May. The funds raised provide The Costume Institute with its primary source of annual funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, and operations, and also support other Museum activities.

The exhibition and Benefit are made possible by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.

Additional support is provided by Saint Laurent and Condé Nast.

The catalogue is made possible by Saint Laurent.

Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer said: “Costume Art will present a dynamic and scholarly conversation between garments from The Costume Institute and an array of artworks from across The Met’s vast collection, elevating universal and timeless themes while bringing forward new ideas and ways of seeing. This immensely creative and collaborative exhibition will demonstrate the Museum’s innovative and forward-thinking approach to presenting Costume Institute exhibitions, and will highlight The Met’s unique ability to position fashion within the context of more than 5,000 years of art represented in its collection. The newly designed, state-of-the-art Condé M. Nast Galleries further reflect The Met’s commitment to displaying and appreciating fashion as an art form, and also to continually investing in gallery improvement projects that will benefit our visitors for generations to come. We are deeply grateful to all of our donors for their remarkable generosity to create these new, grand public galleries.”

Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge, The Costume Institute, added: “For The Costume Institute’s inaugural exhibition in the Condé M. Nast Galleries, I wanted to focus on the centrality of the dressed body within the Museum, connecting artistic representations of the body with fashion as an embodied artform. Rather than prioritizing fashion’s visuality, which often comes at the expense of the corporeal, Costume Art privileges its materiality and the indivisible connection between our bodies and the clothes we wear. The opening of the new Galleries will mark a pivotal moment for the department, one that acknowledges the critical role that fashion plays not only within art history but also within contemporary culture. I am grateful to Max for his support and to the generous donors to the Galleries for their belief in fashion’s transformative possibilities.”

Costume Art will present a series of thematic body types, ranging from those that are pervasive across The Museum, such as the “Naked Body” and the “Classical Body,” to those that have traditionally been overlooked, such as the “Pregnant Body” and the “Ageing Body”, to those that reflect shared bodily characteristics and experiences, such as the “Anatomical Body” and the “Mortal Body.” Pairings between fashions and artworks will present a spectrum of connections: from the formal to the conceptual, the aesthetic to the political, the individual to the universal, the illustrative to the symbolic, and the playful to the profound. The objects will be displayed on traditional pedestals and platforms commonly used by art museums, but in contrast to how they have been used to convey value, status, and significance, in Costume Art these physical structures will be employed in Costume Art to represent equivalency between types of artworks and types of bodies.

In addition to The Costume Institute’s annual spring exhibition, the Condé M. Nast Galleries will at times also display shows from the Museum’s other curatorial departments, including those that explore the intersection of fashion and art. The Costume Art exhibition and the Galleries are designed by Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of the Brooklyn-based architecture firm Peterson Rich Office (PRO). The opening of the Galleries is the first of two major institutional initiatives comprising several components related to the Great Hall that will transform visitors’ experience at this important nexus of the Museum. The second initiative will encompass the activation of The Met’s entrance at 83rd Street and Fifth Avenue, as well as the reenvisioning of The Met’s dining and retail spaces and reimagining of The Met Store. Alongside PRO as design architect, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects LLP will serve as the executive architect for both initiatives. Additional details related to the dining and retail activations will be released at a later date.

Credits
The exhibition is organized by Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge, The Costume Institute, with the support of Costume Institute staff Stephanie Kramer, Senior Research Associate; Ayaka Iida, Research Associate; and Emily Mushaben, Research Associate. The exhibition will be designed by Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of Peterson Rich Office (PRO). Additionally, artist Samar Hejazi will create bespoke heads for the show’s mannequins.

Programming
The Met will host a series of public programs and events that will explore various elements and themes presented in the exhibition. Further information will be released in 2026.

Related Content
An illustrated catalogue written by Bolton will accompany the show and feature new imagery by artist Julie Wolfe, photographer Paul Westlake, and stylist, editor and designer Nathalie Agussol, with an introduction by Dr. Llewellyn Negrin, Head of and Senior Lecturer in Art and Design Theory at the School of Art, University of Tasmania, Australia, and an epilogue by Andrew Solomon. The book will be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed internationally by Yale University Press. Additionally, a limited-edition deluxe publication will be available exclusively at The Met Store.

Join the conversation about the exhibition and Gala on social media: #MetCostumeArt, #CostumeInstitute, @MetCostumeInstitute, and #MetGala.

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