Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams to Co-Chair Met Gala 2026

After a ten-year absence, Beyoncé will return to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's most famous night as a co-chair of the 2026 Met Gala. The global music icon will help lead the event alongside a distinguished group: actress Nicole Kidman, tennis champion Venus Williams, and Vogue's editorial director Anna Wintour. Scheduled for Monday, May 4, 2026, the gala is the primary fundraiser for the museum's Costume Institute.

The evening inaugurates the Institute's latest exhibition, titled "Costume Art." Overseeing the festivities will be a host committee led by Saint Laurent's creative director Anthony Vaccarello and actress Zoë Kravitz. This committee brings together a diverse array of cultural influencers, including musicians Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, and BLACKPINK's Lisa; actors Gwendoline Christie, Elizabeth Debicki, and Lena Dunham; model Paloma Elsesser; and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland. The specific theme attendees must interpret through their attire has not yet been revealed.

Major financial backing for the gala and exhibition comes from lead sponsors Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, with additional crucial support from Saint Laurent and media giant Condé Nast. The exhibition is especially notable as it will be the first presented in The Met's newly constructed Condé M. Nast Galleries. These purpose-built, adjacent spaces offer nearly 12,000 square feet, finally granting the Costume Institute a permanent, state-of-the-art home for its exhibitions after decades of utilizing temporary spaces.

Curated by Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute, "Costume Art" will investigate the fundamental relationship between clothing and the human form. "For this inaugural exhibition in our new galleries, I wanted to foreground the dressed body's place within the museum ecosystem," Bolton explained. The show will connect artistic representations of the body with fashion as a tangible, worn art form, emphasizing the materiality of garments. This approach will juxtapose historical and contemporary fashion with relevant artifacts from across The Met's vast collections to explore the intersection of attire and physicality. As fashion historian Dr. Eleanor Vance notes, "Bolton's focus on material culture over pure theatricality represents a significant scholarly shift, potentially setting a new benchmark for how museums contextualize fashion within broader art history."