Stars will soon take to the carpet for one of fashion’s biggest nights of the year: The Met Gala.
The event on Monday will feature stars from across music, film, TV and fashion who will interpret its 2026 theme Fashion is Art.
The annual Gala raises money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and celebrates the opening of the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition at the New York museum.
The fashion fundraiser is co-chaired by this year’s hosts, former Vogue editor Anna Wintour, best-selling artist Beyoncé, Hollywood star Nicole Kidman and tennis champion Venus Williams.
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It will mark Beyoncé’s first appearance at the Gala in a decade. She last stepped on to the carpet in 2016 for Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology theme.
Each year, Wintour also handpicks a group of celebrities to help launch the museum’s latest exhibition as part of the Met Gala Host Committee, with Yves Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello and actress Zoe Kravitz chosen as this year’s co-chairs of the committee.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos are also co-chairs of the Met Gala and sponsors of the event.
Other members include popstar Sabrina Carpenter, US rapper Doja Cat and One Battle After Another star Teyana Taylor.
A spokesman previously 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 Gala was first held in 1948 and has transformed from a society dinner into one of the biggest cultural events in the world, with some stars showing just how far fashion boundaries can be pushed.
A few headline-making moments in recent years include singer Rihanna embracing the 2018 theme Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination and arrived in a Maison Margiela jewel-encrusted mini dress, matching coat and a papal mitre.
The outfit was widely praised for its commitment to the brief, but also drew criticism from some who viewed the religious references as inappropriate and by some as blasphemous.
Meanwhile in 2021 reality TV star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian arrived for the In America: A Lexicon of Fashion theme dressed in a black tight-fitting Balenciaga bodysuit that covered her entire body and face.
The look forced people to focus on her silhouette – and she made headlines for being instantly recognised.
After the Met Gala, the museums’ spring exhibition, Costume Art, will be on view from May 10 – marking the opening of the nearly 12,000-square-foot galleries adjacent to the Great Hall.
The proceeds from the Gala provide the Costume Institute with its primary source of annual funding. - PA
