The fashion industry’s most anticipated annual event is nearly upon us: the 2026 Met Gala is set to open its red carpet to hundreds of A-listers on the first Monday of May in New York City, with final preparations wrapping up across the city. Seamstresses have put the final stitches on custom designer gowns, high-end jewelry has been polished to a shine, and top local hair stylists and makeup artists have been fully booked for weeks as the industry gears up for what is widely dubbed the “Super Bowl of fashion.”
This year’s gala, which raises critical funding for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, welcomes a star-studded lineup of co-chairs: global music icon Beyoncé, award-winning actor Nicole Kidman, tennis legend Venus Williams, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos alongside his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos, who also serve as official sponsors for the event. For Beyoncé, the appearance marks a full-circle return to the iconic event: she has not walked the Met Gala red carpet since 2016, when she turned heads in a futuristic ensemble for the event’s technology-themed iteration that year.
Joining the co-chairs is an equally high-profile host committee, headlined by designer Anthony Vaccarello and actor-musician Zoë Kravitz. Notable names on the committee include pop star Sabrina Carpenter, rapper Doja Cat, entertainer Teyana Taylor, BLACKPINK’s Lisa, actor Elizabeth Debicki, and writer-director Lena Dunham.
This year’s event ties directly to the Costume Institute’s brand-new spring exhibition, titled *Costume Art*, which will open to the public following the gala. The exhibition features more than 400 garments and historical objects spanning 5,000 years of fashion history, and will run through January 2027. Reflecting the exhibition’s focus, the official gala dress code is “Fashion Is Art,” which invites guests to interpret fashion as a tangible, embodied art form and celebrate how the dressed body has been depicted across art history.
Industry outlets such as Vogue have speculated that many guests will lean into historical artistic references for their red carpet looks, with nods to movements ranging from the Renaissance and Baroque periods to Impressionism. Some celebrities may even pull direct inspiration from iconic individual paintings. That said, the flexible nature of the theme leaves room for endless personal interpretation, so attendees are expected to bring a wildly diverse range of styles to the red carpet.
Beyond the fashion, the 2026 Met Gala has not been without controversy. Bezos’ role as co-chair and sponsor has sparked calls for a boycott from critics, who have raised concerns over workers’ rights issues tied to Amazon. Protest posters have even been spotted near the Metropolitan Museum of Art calling attention to the disputes.
As per long-standing tradition, the event will kick off with guest arrivals starting at 6 p.m. EST (11 p.m. BST). While the official guest list is never released to the public ahead of time, around 450 invited A-list guests are expected to attend. The gala itself is a strictly exclusive, closed-door event: the general public cannot access the inside festivities, which include cocktails, a formal dinner, live entertainment, and a first look at the new *Costume Art* exhibition, and a strict no-selfie rule is enforced inside the venue. Even so, the hours-long pre-event red carpet guarantees global, wall-to-wall media coverage.
As is common for major cultural moments, the 2026 Met Gala has already been leveraged for cross-promotion: the long-awaited sequel *The Devil Wears Prada 2* premiered this past weekend, with its release date deliberately timed to coincide with the gala. The original 2006 film, a beloved affectionate parody of the high fashion world, was loosely based on Met Gala chair Anna Wintour’s tenure as editor-in-chief of Vogue.
For fans unable to attend in person, multiple free live streaming options will be available. Vogue will once again host the official red carpet stream, hosted by model Ashley Graham, model-actor Cara Delevigne, media personality La La Anthony, with fan-favorite correspondent Emma Chamberlain returning for another year. The stream will be broadcast across Vogue’s digital platforms, as well as YouTube and TikTok. Dozens of other news outlets and fashion brands will also stream their own coverage across Instagram and TikTok, and the BBC News website will run a dedicated live page throughout guest arrivals.
For those curious about how the guest list comes together: the event maintains its tight exclusivity through a simple rule: every single invitation must receive personal sign-off from Wintour, who has chaired the Met Gala since 1995 and currently serves as global head of content for Condé Nast, Vogue’s parent company. While tables at the gala cost upwards of $350,000 and individual tickets run roughly $75,000, almost no celebrities pay for their own attendance. Instead, major fashion brands cover the cost of tables and tickets to host A-list stars, who in turn generate massive global publicity for the brand by wearing their designs on the red carpet — publicity that far outweighs the high cost of entry.