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.

Plans for the spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition, John Galliano: Horizons, were made public on 31 July 2026; it would have opened in May 2027 alongside the gala (The Art Newspaper). On 31 August 2026 the Met and Galliano jointly announced that the exhibition “will not proceed as planned”. In the museum’s statement, Galliano said he remained “fully accountable for the pain caused by my words in the past”.

The Met says information on a new spring Costume Institute exhibition and the 2027 Met Gala will be announced at a later date. When this page was checked on 1 October 2026, the museum had not announced a replacement exhibition, theme or gala date.

The gala is traditionally held on the first Monday in May, which in 2027 falls on 3 May. NPR noted that this date coincides with Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2027 and that a change had been speculated; the Met has not confirmed a date. This page does not publish theme predictions.