It’s May and you know what that means — yup, the 2026 Met Gala is almost here. In just a few sleeps, we’ll finally get to see how famous people interpret a Fashion Is Art dress code to varying degrees of success. More than any other red-carpet event, this is a night that encourages creative risk-taking and stepping outside a fashion comfort zone. Those who play it safe rarely end up on the best-dressed lists, but those who step too far out of the box can end up slated, too — which is exactly what makes the evening so fun for us spectators watching at home.
So, what is this year’s 2026 Met Gala theme? And how can you watch? Who is going to be there? Keep reading below for all the juicy ins-and-outs.
When is the 2026 Met Gala?
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Known as the Oscars of fashion, the Met Gala is the annual fundraising event for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Every year, the evening takes place on the first Monday in May, which means this year’s Met Gala will happen on Monday, May 4.
The gala is a fundraiser dedicated to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute – formally named The Anna Wintour Costume Center, in homage to the American Vogue’s former editor-in-chief, who has been a chair member of the museum’s gala since 1995.
What is the Met Gala 2026 theme?
This year’s Met Gala 2026 theme is “Costume Art,” which is inspired by “the centrality of the dressed body.” Quite an abstract idea, which has led to lots of curiosity about how entertainment’s biggest stars will interpret the theme.
“What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body,” curator Andrew Bolton told Vogue. “It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum, which is really what the initial idea for the exhibition was, this epiphany: I know that we’ve often been seen as the stepchild, but, in fact, the dressed body is front and centre in every gallery you come across. Even the nude is never naked. It’s always inscribed with cultural values and ideas.”
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