Met Gala 2026 Dress Code Revealed

Fashion’s biggest night came and went in style.

The 2026 Met Gala, which had a theme of "Costume Art," celebrated the historic partnership between the two branches of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Costume Institute May 4.

And Sabrina Carpenter and Rihanna were among the stars who understood the assignment with their interpretations of the “Fashion Is Art” dress code. As they stepped out at the New York City landmark, they were sure to don ensembles that paid homage to this year's annual exhibit of the same name, which curator Andrew Bolton described as a tribute of "the dressed body."

"The dressed body is front and center in every gallery you come across. Even the nude is never naked," he told Vogue in November. "It’s always inscribed with cultural values and ideas."

Bolton continued, "The idea was to put the body back into discussions about art and fashion, and to embrace the body, not to take it away as a way of elevating fashion to an art form."

"It’s bold, it’s strong, it’s a statement of intent," Bolton explained, adding that the goal was "not to create a new hierarchy," but to "disband that hierarchy and to focus on equivalency—equivalency of artworks and equivalency of bodies."

He added, “What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body. It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum."

To see the best dressed celebs at the 2026 Met Gala, keep reading...