<\/p>\n
NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 You certainly don\u2019t have to tell Beyonc\u00e9 this: Fashion, when deployed properly, is nothing less than art.<\/p>\n Now, the fashion-forward superstar<\/a> will have another chance to make the point. When she co-chairs the Met Gala in May, all eyeballs will be glued to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see how one of the most watched women on the planet, in her eighth gala appearance, interprets the dress code: \u201cFashion is art.\u201d<\/p>\n The museum announced the dress code Monday, along with some gala-related details including new guest names. Joining the top co-chairs \u2014 Beyonc\u00e9, Nicole Kidman,<\/a>tennis champ Venus Williams<\/a> and Vogue’s Anna Wintour \u2014 is a \u201chost committee\u201d chaired by designer Anthony Vaccarello and filmmaker Zo\u00eb Kravitz, and featuring names from Sabrina Carpenter and Teyana Taylor to Lena Dunham and Misty Copeland.<\/a> Additions include actor Angela Bassett and athlete Aimee Mullins.<\/p>\n They, and everyone else attending, will be figuring out what to wear come May 4. The code seems to have been chosen for maximum flexibility. And, quips Andrew Bolton, curator of the Met’s Costume Institute: \u201cHopefully, it will put an end to the rather obsolete ‘Is Fashion Art?’ debate once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking at \u2018the dressed body\u2019 through the centuries<\/p>\n For Bolton, though, the show\u2019s the thing, to paraphrase Hamlet. As gala-watchers know, the big party is not only a fundraiser for the institute \u2014 a self-funding department \u2014 but a launchpad for the annual spring fashion exhibit. Curated by Bolton and his team, this year’s show, \u201cCostume Art,\u201d seeks to present fashion as a through-line in the entire history of art.<\/p>\n The exhibit will be the biggest, in terms of objects, that the institute’s ever done: nearly 400 in total, or 200 garments and 200 artworks from around the museum, placed in pairs. \u201cIt’s a beast,\u201d Bolton said, looking a tad exhausted as he guided a reporter around the beginnings of the exhibit on a recent visit. <\/p>\n The idea, he noted, is to examine \u201cthe dressed body\u201d in all its aspects, and to make the point that not only is fashion art \u2014 something previous shows have shown \u2014 but that art is fashion. \u201cIt\u2019s reversing what we\u2019ve done before,\u201d Bolton says. \u201cNow we’re looking at art through the lens of fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n What that means, in practice, is that you might see an art object in a glass case \u2014 say, a vase from ancient Greece. Displayed above the case will be a garment from the museum\u2019s vast costume collection, echoing the fashion on figures in that vase.<\/p>\n For now, walls full of Post-it notes<\/p>\n Right now, that vase is represented by a small color snapshot, affixed with dozens of others to the walls of a small conference room in the bowels of the museum \u2014 along with countless Post-it notes. Bolton has been spending lots of time in this space, which looks rather like a teenager\u2019s room (albeit a very cultured teenager.) <\/p>\n Bolton walks along the walls, pointing out each of 12 sections organized to show the range of bodies \u2014 and body types \u2014 in art. Some are pervasive, like the classical body or the naked body.<\/p>\n Others have been overlooked, like the disabled body, the aging body, or the corpulent body. Bolton notes that in art, the corpulent body has almost entirely been used as a fertility symbol. \u201cIt\u2019s like the notion that corpulence does not exist without fertility,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Then there’s the pregnant body, also much overlooked in both art and fashion history. It’s represented here by the pairing of Edgar Degas’ \u201cPregnant Woman,\u201d a naturalist sculpture that gives a rare look at 19th-century maternity, with designer Georgina Godley\u2019s 1986 dress featuring exaggerated padded curves \u2014 defined as \u201ca radical feminist critique\u201d of traditional fashion.<\/p>\n The exhibit, which seeks to emphasize diversity in body types, also aims to enable viewers to see themselves in some of the fashions. Thus, mannequins will feature heads with polished steel surfaces \u2014 as in mirrors \u2013 designed by artist Samar Hejazi.<\/p>\n A splashy new home for fashion at the Met<\/p>\n Bolton, who’s curated the Met\u2019s biggest costume shows, nonetheless says he felt special pressure here to do \u201csomething spectacular.\u201d That\u2019s because \u201cCostume Art\u201d is inaugurating, with fanfare, a prominent new home for the museum\u2019s fashion exhibits. The new Conde M. Nast Galleries \u2014 created from what was formerly the museum\u2019s retail store \u2014 will occupy nearly 12,000 square feet (1,115 square meters) off the museum\u2019s Great Hall. <\/p>\n For one thing, that will mean gala guests now can conveniently view the exhibit and then stroll easily to the dinner portion of the evening at the Temple of Dendur \u2014 or toggle between the two. A more lasting result: it will prevent snaking lines elsewhere in the museum, once the show opens to the public May 10.<\/p>\n For \u201cCostume Art,\u201d the galleries, still being completed, consist of two main rooms with different heights \u2014 one with an 18-foot ceiling, one with a 9-foot ceiling. The idea is for viewers to weave in and out of each space. \u201cThere’s a permeability,\u201d Bolton says. <\/p>\n He calls the new show, already, one of the highlights of his career \u2014 and a statement of intent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to make a statement here \u2014 that this is something WE can do at the Met,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe have access to 16 curatorial departments across the museum.\u201d And, of course, access to the institute’s more than 33,000 garments. \u201cReally, nobody else has this capacity,\u201d Bolton says.<\/p>\n He hopes the show will inaugurate not only new galleries, but an era of collaboration with the rest of the museum \u2013 one that puts fashion, well, forward. <\/p>\n \u201cCostume Art\u201d will run from May 10 through Jan. 10, 2027.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source gmg-kprc-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW YORK \u2013 You certainly don\u2019t have to tell Beyonc\u00e9 this: Fashion, when deployed properly, is nothing less than art. Now, the fashion-forward superstar will have another chance to make the point. When she co-chairs the Met Gala in May, all eyeballs will be glued to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2295418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[444787,313743,357065,403667,444786,21741,444784,342222,21818,399160,36290,27664,444785,370810],"class_list":["post-2295417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-andrew-bolton","tag-angela-bassett","tag-anna-wintour","tag-anthony-vaccarello","tag-edgar-degas","tag-entertainment","tag-georgina-godley","tag-lena-dunham","tag-lifestyle","tag-misty-copeland","tag-nicole-kidman","tag-sabrina-carpenter","tag-samar-hejazi","tag-venus-williams"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Met-Gala-guests-and-the-rest-of-us-learn-the.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2295419,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295417\/revisions\/2295419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}