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Chloe Mac Donnell<\/p>\nStars walk red carpet on fashion’s biggest night of the yearChloe Mac Donnell<\/p>\n
Hello and welcome to the Met Gala live blog 2026!<\/p>\n
Chloe from the Guardian\u2019s fashion desk here. My colleague Lauren and I are here to bring you all the best looks, the possible questionable looks and of course, what everyone is talking about from this year\u2019s extravaganza.<\/p>\n
For anyone unfamiliar with the event, a brief recap. For the fashion industry the Met Gala is the equivalent of Hollywood\u2019s Oscars or the Super Bowl. It takes place every year on the first Monday in May to mark the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute latest exhibition. Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and chief content officer at publisher Cond\u00e9 Nast, is responsible for making the Met Gala what it is \u2013 namely the biggest party in fashion and a lucrative fundraiser for the Costume Institute.<\/p>\n
This year it is even a bigger deal because it will also mark the opening of the Costume Institute\u2019s new home \u2013 a 12,000-sq-ft space named the Cond\u00e9 M Nast Galleries after the publisher who made Vogue the fashion bible. Each year the exhibition has a specific theme. This year it is Costume Art which will explore \u201cdepictions of the dressed body across the Met\u2019s vast collection, pairing garments with artworks to reveal the inherent relationship between clothing and the body\u201d. You can read more about that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The theme of the gala always takes its lead from the exhibition but it is different to the exhibition (yes, we know this is confusing!). This year guests have been given the dress code \u201cFashion is Art.\u201d The blurb explains this is a moment for attendees to \u201cexpress their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form and celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history\u201d.<\/p>\n So what can we expect? Well, some celebrities now consider the body itself an art work so there could be a lot of naked dressing. You can imagine some guests might turn up holding an art work wearing something inspired by said art work. Remember in 1965 Yves Saint Laurent paid homage to Mondrian by creating a series of dresses inspired by his abstract canvases so you never know! Plus, the Met Gala has a reputation for people taking risks on the carpet. Jared Leto dressed as a cat in honour of Karl Lagerfeld in 2023, Katy Perry arrived as a glow-up chandelier for 2019\u2019s Camp theme while Rihanna channeled the pope in a mitre for 2018\u2019s Heavenly Bodies dress code.<\/p>\n As always it is set to be starry as Wintour appoints several co-chairs to assist her in overseeing the event. This year they include Beyonc\u00e9, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams. As Jeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez have provided the majority of funding for both the exhibition and the gala, they have been given honorary chair titles. This has led to outrage from some activist groups. Our NYC readers may have already spotted anti-Bezos posters<\/a> calling for a boycott of the gala placed near the museum and on the subway. There is also expected to be some kind of protest outside the event itself, so watch this space.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, some are rebranding it the \u201cTech Gala\u201d thanks to several companies hoovering up tickets. At $100,000-ish a pop for an individual ticket (that\u2019s up from $75,000 last year) and tables fetching upwards of $300,000, who else can afford them? Meta, Snapchat, OpenAI, ShopMy and of course, Amazon have all bought tables. Last year\u2019s Met raised a record $31m, now we\u2019re wondering if this year\u2019s could smash that record?<\/p>\n It is important to note that even if you buy a table, you don\u2019t have the final say on who will join you. Instead each guest needs to be approved personally by Wintour. She also suggests various names. While the guest list is not disclosed, we can expect to see appearances from the host committee, this year led by Saint Laurent\u2019s Anthony Vaccarello and Zoe Kravitz alongside members Doja Cat, Sabrina Carpenter, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Teyana Taylor, A\u2019ja Wilson, Chase Sui Wonder and Sam Smith. Plus would it even be a Met Gala without a Kardashian\/Jenner or two, even three?<\/p>\n One person we won\u2019t be seeing however, is New York\u2019s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Michael R Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams have all previously hotfooted it up the Met\u2019s steps, but in an interview<\/a> Mamdani said while he loved the Met his focus is \u201con affordability and making the most expensive city in the United States affordable, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m looking to spend a lot of my time focused on\u201d. A wise move perhaps, considering the backlash Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got (and still continues to get) when she attended in \u201821 wearing a \u201cTax the Rich\u201d dress.<\/p>\n Inside guests can expect a look around the exhibition followed by drinks, dinner and a surprise performance. Previous acts include Madonna and Rihanna, this year there are rumours of Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo and even Beyonc\u00e9<\/a>.<\/p>\n OK, the first arrivals are beginning to trickle in. Apparently Wintour considers 10 minutes early, 10 minutes late \u2013 that explains the prompt start. Buckle up!<\/p>\n