Beyoncé & Venus Williams Named Co-Chairs of 2026 Met Gala 

The 2026 Met Gala is already shaping up to be a huge fashion reset, and it has everything to do with the powerhouse women leading the charge. Beyoncé and Venus Williams have officially been named co-chairs of next year’s fashion world spectacle, joining Nicole Kidman and Anna Wintour in guiding one of the most influential nights in global style, Vogue reports.

For fans of the superstars who grew up watching both women redefine excellence in their own lanes, this moment feels especially iconic. Beyoncé’s return to the Met steps will be her first in a decade. Her last appearance was in 2016, when she floated up the stairs in Givenchy Haute Couture for “Manus x Machina.” After ten years away, her comeback as co-chair signals a new era of artistic expression, cultural intentionality, and sheer star power.

Venus Williams, a fashion force in her own right, continues to show that her legacy stretches far beyond tennis. Williams has been a regular at the gala, including this past May when she arrived at the “Superfine” event in a custom Lacoste look featuring a tennis skirt, polo, and cape. Seeing her step into a leadership role alongside Beyoncé marks a beautiful moment for Black women at the intersection of sport, culture, and high fashion.

The theme for the 2026 exhibition is “Costume Art,” a deep dive curated by Andrew Bolton that examines the relationship between clothing and the human body. The show will highlight everything from the Naked Body to the Pregnant Body to the Aging Body, weaving together historical and contemporary pieces from The Met’s massive Costume Institute archives. It also marks the first exhibition to take place in the museum’s new Condé Nast Galleries, a nearly 12,000-square-foot expansion that speaks to the growing influence of fashion as a fine art.

“I wanted to focus on the centrality of the dressed body within the museum, connecting artistic representations of the body with fashion as an embodied art form,” Bolton said in a release. “Rather than prioritizing fashion’s visuality, which often comes at the expense of the corporeal, ‘Costume Art’ privileges its materiality and the indivisible connection between our bodies and the clothes we wear.”

The star power behind the scenes is just as stacked. Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz will co-chair the 2026 Host Committee, with members including Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Elizabeth Debicki, Lena Dunham, Paloma Elsesser, LISA, Chloe Malle, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, Lauren Wasser, Anna Weyant, A’ja Wilson, and Yseult, with more names still to come.

As always, the Met Gala serves as a major fundraiser for the Costume Institute’s exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, and operations. “Costume Art” will open to the public on May 10, 2026, and remain on view through January 10, 2027, with the evening’s formal dress code dropping at a later date.

With Beyoncé and Venus Williams at the helm, expectations are sky-high, and the culture is tuned all the way in. The 2026 Met Gala is gearing up to be a night where art, fashion, and Black excellence meet at the top of the Met steps.

Cover photo: Beyoncé & Venus Williams Named Co-Chairs of 2026 Met Gala/Photo credit: Beyoncé/Instagram/LucasZuffo