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NEW YORK — There’s no need to remind Beyoncé that when used effectively, fashion transcends mere clothing to become a true art form.
This May, the iconic singer will once again have the spotlight to illustrate this notion. As she steps into her role as co-chair of the Met Gala, all eyes will be fixed on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s grand entrance, eager to see how she, in her eighth appearance at the gala, interprets the theme: “Fashion is art.”
The museum unveiled the dress code on Monday, along with fresh details about the gala, including a lineup of new guests. Joining the leading co-chairs—Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, tennis legend Venus Williams, and Vogue’s Anna Wintour—is a “host committee” led by designer Anthony Vaccarello and filmmaker Zoë Kravitz. The committee features a diverse group including Sabrina Carpenter, Teyana Taylor, Lena Dunham, and Misty Copeland. Among the new additions are actor Angela Bassett and athlete Aimee Mullins.
All attendees will be pondering their attire for the event on May 4. The chosen theme seems intentionally broad, offering ample room for creativity. As Andrew Bolton, curator of the Met’s Costume Institute, humorously notes, “Hopefully, it will put an end to the rather outdated ‘Is Fashion Art?’ debate once and for all.”
Exploring fashion through the ages
As Bolton would agree, the exhibit steals the show, echoing Hamlet’s sentiment that the play’s the thing. For gala enthusiasts, this grand event is not only a significant fundraiser for the institute—a self-sustaining entity—but also the unveiling of the annual spring fashion exhibition. Curated by Bolton and his team, this year’s exhibit, “Costume Art,” aims to track the evolution of fashion throughout the history of art.
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. “It’s a beast,” Bolton said, looking a tad exhausted as he guided a reporter around the beginnings of the exhibit on a recent visit.
The idea, he noted, is to examine “the dressed body” in all its aspects, and to make the point that not only is fashion art – something previous shows have shown – but that art is fashion. “It’s reversing what we’ve done before,” Bolton says. “Now we’re looking at art through the lens of fashion.”
What that means, in practice, is that you might see an art object in a glass case – say, a vase from ancient Greece. Displayed above the case will be a garment from the museum’s vast costume collection, echoing the fashion on figures in that vase.
For now, walls full of Post-it notes
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 – along with countless Post-it notes. Bolton has been spending lots of time in this space, which looks rather like a teenager’s room (albeit a very cultured teenager.)
Bolton walks along the walls, pointing out each of 12 sections organized to show the range of bodies – and body types – in art. Some are pervasive, like the classical body or the naked body.
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. “It’s like the notion that corpulence does not exist without fertility,” he says.
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’ “Pregnant Woman,” a naturalist sculpture that gives a rare look at 19th-century maternity, with designer Georgina Godley’s 1986 dress featuring exaggerated padded curves – defined as “a radical feminist critique” of traditional fashion.
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 – as in mirrors – designed by artist Samar Hejazi.
A splashy new home for fashion at the Met
Bolton, who’s curated the Met’s biggest costume shows, nonetheless says he felt special pressure here to do “something spectacular.” That’s because “Costume Art” is inaugurating, with fanfare, a prominent new home for the museum’s fashion exhibits. The new Conde M. Nast Galleries – created from what was formerly the museum’s retail store – will occupy nearly 12,000 square feet (1,115 square meters) off the museum’s Great Hall.
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 – 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.
For “Costume Art,” the galleries, still being completed, consist of two main rooms with different heights – 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. “There’s a permeability,” Bolton says.
He calls the new show, already, one of the highlights of his career – and a statement of intent.
“We’re trying to make a statement here – that this is something WE can do at the Met,” he explains. “We have access to 16 curatorial departments across the museum.” And, of course, access to the institute’s more than 33,000 garments. “Really, nobody else has this capacity,” Bolton says.
He hopes the show will inaugurate not only new galleries, but an era of collaboration with the rest of the museum – one that puts fashion, well, forward.
“Costume Art” will run from May 10 through Jan. 10, 2027.
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