Met Gala

The Met Gala began in 1948, when fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert — who had created New York’s Press Week five years earlier — organised a midnight supper to raise funds for the Costume Institute, the fashion collection that had just become part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tickets for the first dinner are reported to have cost fifty dollars.

Over the following decades the event grew from a society dinner into the institute’s primary annual fundraiser, its guest list expanding from New York society to a cross-section of fashion, film, music and sport. The gala’s proceeds fund the Costume Institute’s exhibitions and acquisitions.

The gala’s modern form took shape under Anna Wintour, who has chaired or co-chaired the event since 1995, turning it into fashion’s most-watched red carpet: arrival looks are commissioned around the year’s exhibition theme and generate days of global coverage. The gala is traditionally held on the first Monday in May — the 2020 edition was cancelled and later editions briefly moved off the date before the tradition resumed.

The 2026 Met Gala took place on Monday 4 May 2026 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accompanying the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition. As with every edition, beauty and styling on the carpet were directed by each attendee’s own appointed team rather than a single event credit.