The Metropolitan Museum of Art is preparing to launch the Condé M. Nast Galleries next spring, a nearly 12,000-square-foot space adjacent to the Grand Hall that will put fashion at the center of the museum experience. This marks a significant transformation for the Costume Institute, which will move from its lower-level location to one of the museum's most prominent spaces, previously occupied by the institution's largest retail area.
Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute's curator-at-large, described this development as a pivotal moment for both the department and fashion as a whole. "It's a huge moment for the Costume Institute," Bolton told Vogue. "It will be transformative for our department, but I also think it's going to be transformative to fashion more generally—the fact that an art museum like the Met is actually giving a central location to fashion."
The new galleries will debut with "Costume Art," running from May 10, 2026, to January 10, 2027. This inaugural exhibition will highlight the centrality of the dressed body within the museum by pairing paintings, sculptures, and other art objects with historical and contemporary garments from the Costume Institute. Bolton emphasized that fashion serves as a common thread throughout the entire museum, stating, "What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body."
The exhibition will challenge traditional curatorial conventions by moving away from displaying disembodied garments as isolated art objects. Instead, it will create visual juxtapositions, such as pairing a voluptuous 1936 Hans Bellmer sculpture with a similarly bulbous 2017 Comme des Garçons dress. "Over the last decade, fashion has gained acceptance as an art form, but its assimilation has been a double-edged sword," Bolton explained to The New York Times, "because it used the rhetoric of art history to elevate it and came at the cost of severing clothes from the body."
The show will be organized around thematic archetypes including "Naked Body" and "Classical Body," alongside previously overlooked categories like "Ageing Body" and "Pregnant Body," ensuring universal resonance with visitors. This approach aims to make the corporeal case for fashion as an extension of the art-making impulse.
The more prominent location reflects the tremendous popularity of fashion exhibitions at the Met. The 2018 exhibition "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" not only set a record for Costume Institute attendance but became the most-visited exhibition in the Met's entire history, drawing more than 1.6 million visitors during its run.
Max Hollein, the Met's director and chief executive, told The New York Times that this represents "a major milestone in the development of the Met's profound involvement and sincere engagement with the history of fashion and its role within the broader context." He added that finding adequate space and giving fashion the level of prominence it requires was a personal priority.
The Costume Institute has a unique history within the Met, originally existing as a stand-alone institution called the Museum of Costume Art before being absorbed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1946. The new galleries represent a professional triumph for Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor and fashion industry leader who chairs the Costume Institute's annual fundraising gala, the Met Gala.
Wintour emphasized the global impact of fashion exhibitions in drawing diverse audiences to the museum. "Because it's on such a global scale makes people want to come into the museum and maybe see the Sargent show," she told the Times, referring to the recent John Singer Sargent in Paris exhibition. "The entry point was watching whatever they see on the red carpet."
The Costume Institute stands out as the only curatorial department in the Met required to fund its own operations, and it has proven remarkably successful in this regard. Last May, the department raised a staggering $31 million. "It's like having a short run on Broadway when you have a big hit," Wintour explained. "To have our own space that is dedicated to costume is extraordinary."
The new Condé M. Nast Galleries were designed by Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of the Brooklyn-based architecture firm Peterson Rich Office, working under the executive oversight of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects. The galleries will include new dining and retail spaces in addition to exhibition areas.
The galleries are named in honor of a significant gift from Condé Nast, the publishing company. The first exhibition in the space and next year's Met Gala are being underwritten by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, journalist Lauren Sánchez Bezos. Meanwhile, the institute's below-ground galleries, which bear Anna Wintour's name, will continue to be used for smaller autumn exhibitions.
