Met Gala 2026 – Beauty in the noise

The Met Gala 2026 affirms its status as the “cathedral of art” of the fashion industry, despite the wave of boycotts of sponsor – billionaire Jeff Bezos.

According to WWD, on May 4, the 2026 Met Gala set a record with a donation of up to $42 million to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, just hours before the first guests arrived. Images of the event continuously covered all platforms of TikTok, Instagram, X, Thread and millions of shares and comments, showing the attraction of the fashion night.

For nearly 30 years, under Anna Wintour, the Met Gala has always pursued one goal: to prove that fashion is an art form. This year’s event continues to reinforce that, with the theme of Costume Art with the dresscode Fashion is Art, which explores the intimate connection between clothing, the body and art throughout its 5,000 years of history.

From 17:30 until late at night, celebrities sit on the steps, posing around wisteria clusters to evoke the spring air. This year’s carpet is not red. It was hand-painted like a walkway in a paved garden with patches of moss green, as if it had been there for a long time.

According to WWD, the fashion at this year’s Met Gala proved that an outfit can bring the same emotion when looking at the paintings of Caravaggio – the famous Italian Baroque painter.

Many guests choose a sculptural style. Robert Wun designed for Blackpink’s Lisa a dress studded with 66,960 Swarovski crystals, attached to an arm dummy. Casual fashion house Gap teamed up with Zac Posen for Kendall Jenner a twisted dress inspired by the Goddess of Victory at the Louvre. Rihanna’s Margiela outfit is reminiscent of medieval architecture in Belgium.

Others choose inspiration from painting. The Madonna’s costume made by Saint Laurent is derived from Leonora Carrington’s painting Temptation of St. Anthony. Cardi B’s puffed dress designed by Marc Jacobs recreates the work of artist Hans Bellmer. Up to three beauties, including Lauren Sánchez, Julianne Moore and Claire Foy, wore dresses inspired by John Singer Sargent’s scandalous painting of Madame X.

Others interpreted the theme with abstract concepts, including Emma Chamberlain, who brought a post-apocalyptic style by recreating Thierry Mugler’s classic 1997 butterfly design. The tail of the skirt has a circumference of 9 m with 880 pleats, made up of more than 150 m of fabric and 958 hours of processing. Artist Anna Deller-Yee used 30 colors painted directly onto the costume within 40 hours and dried it for four days.

Jane Pham