The 2026 Met Gala opens Monday May 4 at 6 p.m. Eastern with co-chairs Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour; the night benefits the Costume Institute and previews its spring exhibition, Costume Art, which opens to the public May 10 and runs through January 10, 2027. The dress code is Fashion Is Art. [1][2]

The exhibition pairs roughly 200 garments with 200 artworks across 5,000 years of art history from the museum's collection — Andrew Bolton's curatorial frame is "the centrality of the dressed body." Wintour, who marks her 38th year programming the gala, has used 2026's Costume Art theme to position the Costume Institute's expanded fashion galleries — opened in March 2026 — as a year-round real-estate claim, not a one-night benefit. The host committee includes Anthony Vaccarello, Zoë Kravitz, Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Christie, LISA, A'ja Wilson and Yseult. [1][3]

Beyoncé's appearance is the spectacle hook. It is her first Met Gala red carpet since 2016, when she wore a nude latex Givenchy haute couture gown by Riccardo Tisci. Venus Williams's co-chair role builds on her growing arts-philanthropy profile and ties the gala back to its broader cultural-prestige circuit. Disney's Devil Wears Prada 2 wide release the same day — also Monday — is the studio's deliberate runway-week launch, the second piece of fashion-calendar IP landing inside one news cycle. [2][3]

The brief: Met Monday is again the city's loudest cultural-calendar entry, and the museum has spent April publicly arguing that the Gala's ticket revenue is no longer the institution's only fashion-revenue lever. The expanded galleries are the lever the Costume Institute is now naming.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles