Every fall, fashion fans wait with bated breath to hear what the following year’s Met Gala theme will be. This week, not only was 2026’s theme revealed, but some major news came with the announcement. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which is responsible for the museum’s fashion exhibitions and its upwards of 33,000 fashion-related objects, is getting its very own dedicated gallery space. Named the Condé M. Nast Galleries, it will officially open on May 10, 2026.
The theme of next year’s gala is “Costume Art,” which is also the title of the new galleries’ first exhibition. Pairing roughly 200 artworks with about the same number of garments and accessories, the show will focus on fashion as the connective tissue running through the museum’s entire collection. “There are 17 curatorial departments in The Met, representing 5,000 years of art from around the world in six miles of galleries,” Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the institute, told the New York Times. “And what connects all those areas is fashion, or more broadly, the dressed body. There’s not a single gallery in the museum in which the dressed body isn’t represented.”
The establishment of the permanent galleries for the Costume Institute reflects the draw that its programming has been for visitors. According to the Times, 5 of the 10 most popular shows in the museum’s modern history were ones the institute mounted. Its exhibitions will now be easier for guests to locate within the labyrinthine museum, as the Condé M. Nast Galleries will be located in the 11,500-square-foot former gift-shop space off the Great Hall. Seems like fashion lovers have plenty to look forward to in 2026.
