By Sara Bright
“Fashion is Art,” proclaimed the Costume Institute. The celebrities, for the most part, heeded the message by becoming walking, sparkly and sometimes sad artworks in the unforgiving steps of the Metropolitan Museum.
Monday is a holy day for the vain, and so it was on May 4. The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its doors for the 2026 Met Gala, pulling all the great, good, and obscenely rich up those fabled stairs. They say it is the night of the biggest fashion party in town. I prefer to call it a hostage situation with flashbulbs and ego playing a hefty ransom.
It promised us art. Good art.
A show titled “Costume Art” by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum explores the role of the dressed body as an artwork throughout centuries, a very weighty subject indeed, which turned out to be a simple and direct instruction for the red carpet: “Fashion Is Art.” A very risky instruction indeed. Ask an actor to dress up like art, and there is always a risk of getting yourself a Jackson Pollock gone wrong. And the red carpet, being itself, was oblivious to the museum’s curatorship.
Brilliant or Terrible? One of the co-chairs, Beyoncé, not only knew the task at hand. She executed it flawlessly using one custom-made shoe. And then she did it again. This star wore two glittery outfits, pretty much turning the gala event into her own concert tour. Machinery. Glamour. That’s how you own the room.
Nicole Kidman chose another approach. She came dressed up in Moulin Rouge in Chanel’s gown, which was absolutely dramatic and romantic and completely nostalgic, even though she might feel very uncomfortable under that amount of clothing. Venus Williams gave herself a tribute to her tennis achievements and family, as well. Not everybody wants to look like something from a Renaissance painting. Sometimes people just want to look like champions.
Then there were the disrupters. The rebels. The Silicon Valley tech moguls trying to prove their coolness by wearing designs from independent artists. It never works. Tech CEO wearing experimental suits looks like a school teacher lost at an underground dance party. No matter how hard they try, these men cannot code their way into style.
Jeans became a trend at the Met Gala. Yes, jeans at the gala event.
Sounds like a crime against Anna Wintour, yet it worked. Denim, the stuff of jeans, was manipulated, sculpted, and distressed until it transcended casual clothing to become architecture. It felt like the Soviet housing committee had stumbled on haute couture – brutal, functional, but strangely poetic.
Madonna, God love her, decided to try and make contact with the dearly departed. She came on stage wearing the legendary Shipwreck hat, which belonged to the sadly departed Isabella Blow. The hat, heavy and exquisite enough to crack your spine, was an example of the finest use of clothing as a form of archival preservation. It proves once again that fashion-as-art is best interpreted when you’re borrowing from the dead.
But it’s the Matières Fécales pieces that I couldn’t stop staring at. What is it with those French and their delightfully disgusting fashion brand names? Not that it really matters when the actual items are this amazing (terrifying and beautiful, but alien). They turned their models into aliens right off of some glossy sci-fi magazine, reminding us that not all red carpet dressing needs to be about looking pretty.
The sheer energy of the night was exhausting. Rihanna, of course, made a late appearance. Kendell Jenner and Zoe Kravitz were on par with Kendall Jenner and Zoe Kravitz both showed off the same polished perfection that we have come to expect from them. Sabrina Carpenter seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself, which is a very unusual feeling and an extremely suspicious one, too, at the Met Gala.
The entire charade was aired live, endlessly dissected by Vogue writers, and then mercilessly mocked by the internet even before the gala guests finished their salads.
This is the Met Gala of 2026. It is a fundraiser event. It is a show of shows. It is a play within a play, where costumes are everything and there is no real plot at all.
