Met Gala 2026 celebrates 'Costume Art' with Beyoncé, Rihanna leading red carpet

Each May, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art become a threshold between the everyday world and something more deliberately constructed — a place where culture pauses to ask what it means to dress with intention. The 2026 Met Gala, anchored by the theme of costume art, gathered the era's most visible figures to explore the boundary between garment and performance, between fashion as taste and costume as transformation. In the presence of Beyoncé, Rihanna, Madonna, and others, the evening renewed its long-standing role as a cultural referendum — not merely on what people wear, but on wh