Artists and fashion personalities took turns Monday evening to climb the steps of the Met Gala, during a 2026 edition dedicated to the art of costume. Despite calls for a boycott – Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his wife being this year's main sponsors – the stars were there, including Beyoncé, who made her comeback.

Published on: 04/05/2026 - 22:55 Modified on: 05/05/2026 - 05:50

Fashion was celebrated as an art in its own right on Monday May 4 on the steps of the Met Gala, with several stars referencing other disciplines, from painting to sculpture, in a relatively demure atmosphere.

If the 2025 edition and the exhibition which accompanied it had highlighted subversive black dandyism, it is fashion as art which has this time been highlighted. Entitled “Costume Art”, the Costume Institute exhibition, which will open on May 10, will highlight the time-honored links between art and clothing.

On the steps, professional tennis player Naomi Osaka recalled Calder's mobiles with her petals on stems enhancing a dress and a huge white hat. Former model Heidi Klum has transformed herself into a living alabaster. But many chose classic cuts and muted colors, with lots of white, beige and black.

The eccentricity was almost more to be found in the boys, notably with the bare arms and the ascot of Connor Storrie, one of the two prominent actors in the phenomenon series “Heated Rivalry”. Also noticed, the costume of actor Ben Platt ("Pitch Perfect"), directly inspired by a painting by Georges Seurat.

Beyoncé celebrates “all bodies”

But as expected, it was Beyoncé who, for her first appearance in ten years, won the day with a dress designed by French designer Olivier Rousteing. The American artist paid tribute to the former artistic director of Balmain, who left the Parisian house last year.

“Queen B” came accompanied by her husband, rapper Jay-Z, but also by her eldest daughter Blue Ivy, now 14 years old. “It’s great to be able to share this with her,” the singer, co-chair with tennis legend Venus Williams and Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, said on Vogue magazine’s YouTube channel.

With her dress stitched with sparkling stones, which outlined a skeleton, Beyoncé declined the other major theme of the new Costume Institute exhibition.

The “Costume Art” exhibition thus intends to show the body – so often standardized in fashion – in all its forms: thin or fat, pregnant, disabled, tattooed... with models modeled on real people.

The watchword could be “equity or equivalence”, summarizes for AFP the curator of the Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton. There is "no hierarchy" between works of art (sculptures, paintings, drawings, photos... and, of course, clothing) or between bodies, he adds.

Beyoncé intended to celebrate “all bodies” on Monday, she explained at the top of the steps. “Pulpious, with shapes, thin, tall: all of them,” she said. “We’re just celebrating what God has given us.”

Like every year for 30 years, the Met Gala – whose extravagant outfits are the delight of social networks – was placed under the supervision of fashion queen Anna Wintour, global editorial director of Vogue.

The artistic director of Saint Laurent Anthony Vaccarello, the actress Zoë Kravitz, the singers Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat and the Frenchwoman Yseult were also among the personalities supervising the event, traditionally organized on the first Monday in May.

The boycott does not take

This year's gala raised $42 million (a "record" after the $31 million raised last year) for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and its fashion department, the Costume Institute, Met Director General Max Hollein said at a press conference on Monday.

Long perceived by some as an indecent display of wealth, the evening promised to be even more controversial this year because Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos were the main sponsors and honorary presidents. But Jeff Bezos did not appear on the steps, thus avoiding generating a negative reaction from the public. As for the call to boycott a collective denouncing the activities of tech billionaires, it fell flat, with all the stars being present.

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The Met Gala was first held in 1948, and for decades it remained the preserve of New York high society – until Anna Wintour transformed the evening in the 1990s into a high-profile celebrity catwalk.

With AFP

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