Costume Art Fashion 2026

Costume Art, presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, argues that the dressed human body is not a peripheral concern of art history but a generative thread running through the Met's entire collection. Drawing on garments from The Costume Institute alongside loans, the exhibition puts fashion into dialogue with paintings, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts from across the museum's nineteen curatorial departments. Rather than treating clothing as mere illustration or ornament, the show frames dress as an interpretive lens — one that reveals how bodies are shaped, regulated, and given meaning by the garments (or absence of garments) placed on them. The exhibition is organized into thematic sections, each built around a distinct facet of embodiment: Naked & Nude Body, Abstract Body, Aging Body, Anatomical Body, Corpulent Body, Disabled Body, Epidermal Body, Inscribed Body, Mortal Body, Pregnant Body, Reclaimed Body, and Vital Body, framed by broader reflections on "bodily being" in its universality and diversity. Within each section, historical and contemporary fashion objects are paired with artworks spanning millennia, for example, a Vaquera thong referencing Rudi Gernreich's 1985 "Pubikini" is shown alongside an ancient Egyptian fertility statuette, while a transparent Prada raincoat is juxtaposed with the Guerrilla Girls' famous poster questioning why so few nudes in the Met's collection are by women artists. Other pairings include Issey Miyake's "A-POC" garment shown against a 17th-century anatomical engraving, and contemporary designers like Telfar Clemens and Anders Bergstrom whose work engages histories of race, accessibility, and skin.