The theme of the 2026 Met Costume Institute exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be “Costume Art”

Fashion is coming out of the basement at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Announced today, “Costume Art,” the spring 2026 exhibition at the Costume Institute, will mark the inauguration of the nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries, adjacent to The Met’s Great Hall. “It’s a huge moment for the Costume Institute,” says curator in charge Andrew Bolton. “It will be transformative for our department, but I also think it’s going to be transformative to fashion more generally—the fact that an art museum like The Met is actually giving a central location to fashion.”

To mark the momentous occasion, Bolton has conceived an exhibition that addresses “the centrality of the dressed body in the museum’s vast collection,” by pairing paintings, sculptures, and other objects spanning the 5,000 years of art represented in The Met, alongside historical and contemporary garments from the Costume Institute.

The Naked Body: Adam and Eve, Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471– 1528), 1504; Fletcher Fund, 1919 (19.73.1). Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ensemble, Walter Van Beirendonck (Belgian,
born 1957), spring/summer 2009; Purchase,
Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2020
(2020.45a–d). Photo: Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Reclaimed Body: La Poupeé, Hans Bellmer (German, born Poland, 1902–1975), ca. 1936; Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 (1987.1100.333). © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ensemble, Rei Kawakubo (Japanese, born 1942) for Comme des Garçons (Japanese, founded 1969), fall/winter 2017–18; Purchase, Funds from various donors, by exchange, 2018
(2018.23a). Photo” Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body,” Bolton says. “It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum, which is really what the initial idea for the exhibition was, this epiphany: I know that we’ve often been seen as the stepchild, but, in fact, the dressed body is front and center in every gallery you come across. Even the nude is never naked,” he continues. “It’s always inscribed with cultural values and ideas.”

The art and fashion divide stubbornly persists despite Costume Institute exhibitions like “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” which was the most-visited exhibition in The Met’s history with 1.66 million visitors. Bolton figures that the hierarchy endures precisely because of clothing’s connection to the body. “Fashion’s acceptance as an art form has really occurred on art’s terms,” he explains. “It’s premised on the negation, on the renunciation, of the body, and on the [fact that] aesthetics are about disembodied and disinterested contemplation.”

The Anatomical Body: Plate 33 in Govard Bidloo, Ontleading des menschlyken Lichaems, Abraham Blooteling (Dutch, 1640–1690) and Pieter van Gunst (Dutch, 1659–1724) After Gerard de Lairesse (Dutch, 1641–1711), 1728; Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1952 (52.546.5). Photo: Mark Morosse © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Corset Anatomia” ensemble, Renata Buzzo (Brazilian, born 1986), spring/summer 2025;
Courtesy Renata Buzzo. Photo: Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Pregnant Body: Eleanor, Harry Callahan (American, 1912–1999), 1949; Gift of Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1991 (1991.1304). © The Estate of Harry Callahan; Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Pregnancy” dress, Georgina Godley (British, born 1955), fall/winter 1986–87, edition 2025; Purchase, Anthony Gould Fund, 2025. Photo: Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Traditionally, Bolton admits, Costume Institute shows have emphasized clothing’s visual appeal, with the mannequins disappearing behind or underneath garments. His bold idea for “Costume Art” is to insist on the significance of the body, or “the indivisible connection between our bodies and the clothes we wear.” Fashion, he insists, actually “has an edge on art because it is about one’s lived, embodied experience.”

He’s organised the exhibition around a series of thematic body types loosely divided into three categories. These include bodies omnipresent in art, like the classical body and the nude body; other kinds of bodies that are more often overlooked, like aging bodies and pregnant bodies; and still more that are universal, like the anatomical body. Bolton’s is a much more expansive view of the corporeal than the fashion industry itself often promotes, with its rail-thin models and narrow size ranges. “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,” he explains.

The Classical Body: Terracotta statuette of Nike, the personification of victory, Greek, late 5th century BCE; Rogers Fund, 1907 (07.286.23). Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Delphos” gown, Adèle Henriette Elisabeth Nigrin Fortuny (French, 1877–1965) and Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (Spanish, 1871–1949) for Fortuny (Italian, founded 1906), 1920s; Gift of Estate of Lillian Gish, 1995 (1995.28.6a). Photo” Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Bustle” muslin, Charles James (American, born Great Britain, 1906–1978), 1947; Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the
Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Millicent Huttleston Rogers, 1949 (2009.300.752). Photo” Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Abstract Body: Impression of Amélie de Montfort, Jean- Baptiste Carpeaux (French, 1827–1875), ca. 1867–69; Purchase, Friends of European
Sculpture and Decorative Arts Gifts, 1989 (1989.289.2). Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Evening dress, Mon. Vignon (French, ca. 1850-
1910), 1875–78; Gift of Mary Pierrepont
Beckwith, 1969 (C.I69.14.12a, b).
Photo: Anna-Marie Kellen © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Indeed, the exhibition has been designed, by Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of the Brooklyn firm Peterson Rich Office, to privilege fashion. In the high ceiling room of the Condé M. Nast Galleries (there is also a low ceilinged room), clothing will be displayed on mannequins perched on 6-foot pedestals, onto which the artwork will be embedded. “When you walk in, your eye immediately goes up, you look at the fashions first,” Bolton says.