Lauren Sánchez Bezos Explains This Year’s Met Gala Theme
Lauren Sánchez Bezos is offering a little guidance for fashion fans trying to decode this year’s Met Gala dress code. The 2026 theme, “Fashion Is Art,” ties into the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “Costume Art,” which highlights the role of the dressed body within the museum’s broader collection. Appearing on the Today show, Sánchez Bezos explained that designers should be viewed as artists, pointing to the creative relationship between legendary designer Elsa Schiaparelli and surrealist painter Salvador Dalí—with Dalí working on canvas while Schiaparelli used clothing as her medium. The idea underscores how fashion can function as a true artistic expression on the red carpet.
via The Cut:
We are only eight weeks away from the first Monday in May, which means celebrities and stylists are in the fashion trenches trying to decipher the intimidatingly vague dress code for this year’s Met Gala, “Fashion Is Art.” The theme is a nod to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition “Costume Art,” which will “highlight the centrality of the dressed body in the museum’s vast collection.” That sounds trickier to honor on the red carpet than, say, that time Rihanna dressed as a sexy pope for the “Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” exhibition in 2018.
Thankfully, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, the Met Gala’s main sponsor (alongside her husband, Jeff Bezos), can offer some insight. “When Anna called me and said, ‘Do you want to co-chair and also be the sponsors of the Met?,’ I was so honored,” she said this week on the Today show, where she appeared to promote her new children’s book about “an undersea adventure filled with breathtaking biodiversity and the power of self-acceptance.” When host Craig Melvin asked what we can expect to see on the red carpet, Sánchez Bezos helpfully explained, “These designers are true artists. Like Elsa Schiaparelli was best friends with Salvador Dalí. And Salvador Dalí’s medium was a canvas, and hers was, you know, clothing.” Does that help clear things up?
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether Sánchez Bezos can explain the theme, because whatever she wears (sounds like Schiaparelli?) will probably have the AWOK. Vogue’s Anna Wintour said in November that she thinks Sánchez Bezos will be a “wonderful asset” to the event. Wintour also sat with the couple at Fashion Week in Paris earlier this year, giving them plenty of time to plan their looks. Bezos Gala, here we come.