How to Visit the Costume Institute Exhibition at the Met?
The evening is by invitation; the exhibition it opens is open to all. When it opens, how to see it, and how to fit it into your week.
Last updated 5 October 2026 · 4 min read
The Costume Institute's spring exhibition is the one the Met Gala opens each first Monday in May. It opens to the public a few days later — on 10 May in 2025 as in 2026 — and stays open for several months, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue. It is visited with a museum admission ticket, without an invitation. For 2027, the museum has not yet announced the theme or the dates: it withdrew the planned exhibition in late August 2026 and indicated that a new theme would be announced at a later date. The first weeks are very busy: aim for the morning opening or the late openings.
The exhibition the evening opens
Each spring, the Costume Institute presents a major exhibition devoted to dress, prepared over many months by its curators. The Met Gala is its opening evening: the guests see it first, and its theme gives the gala its dress code. The proceeds of the evening fund most of the department's year — exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, operations.
For those not invited to the gala, it is the most direct way to see what the evening celebrates: the pieces, the staging, the argument. In 2026, the exhibition “Costume Art” opened new galleries of nearly 12,000 square feet, adjoining the museum's Great Hall, and brought together nearly four hundred works from its collections.
When does it open to the public?
The recent rhythm is regular: the gala on the first Monday in May, the public opening on the following Saturday or Sunday, then several months of exhibition. Staying a few days after the gala therefore lets you see it in its first days.
For 2027, nothing has yet been set. The exhibition the museum announced in July 2026 was withdrawn from its programme on 31 August 2026, and the museum indicated that the new theme and the evening would be announced at a later date. We will update this guide as soon as they are.
| Year | Evening | Public opening | Closing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Monday 5 May | 10 May 2025 | 26 October 2025 |
| 2026 | Monday 4 May | 10 May 2026 (“Costume Art”) | 10 January 2027 |
| 2027 | May 2027, date not published | To be announced by the museum | To be announced |
How to visit: ticket, opening hours, crowds
The exhibition is visited with a museum admission ticket, preferably booked online on the Met's website. The Met Fifth Avenue is closed on Wednesdays; it stays open late on Fridays and Saturdays. Opening hours and access conditions specific to each exhibition are published by the museum: we check them for your dates.
In the first weeks, the exhibition draws large crowds. Two moments are calmer: the morning opening, arriving ahead of time, and the end of the late openings. Allow one to two hours for the exhibition itself, more if you continue into the collections — the museum is immense.
Fitting the visit into your week
We arrange the visit as a moment of the week, not a race: the car that drops you at opening time, a lunch booked in the neighbourhood, a walk in Central Park or along Madison Avenue afterwards. If your hotel is in the Upper East Side — The Carlyle, a few blocks away, named by way of illustration — the museum is reached on foot.
Private or after-hours visits fall under the museum's own programmes, notably its patronage programmes: we neither promise nor sell them. Where relevant, we tell you what the museum offers and how to request it.
What the exhibition says about the evening
Each exhibition sets the theme and the dress code of the gala: in 2025, an exhibition devoted to tailoring called for the dress code “Tailored for You”; in 2026, “Costume Art” called for “Fashion Is Art”. Seeing the exhibition means understanding the looks the evening showed on opening night — and what they sought to say.
Our guide The Met Gala Dress Code returns to this link between theme, exhibition and looks, and to the codes of the week around it. Our Met Gala VIP page composes the whole stay.
Frequently asked questions
No. The exhibition opens to the public a few days after the evening and is visited with a museum admission ticket. The gala is simply its opening evening.
It has not yet been announced. In late August 2026 the museum withdrew the exhibition planned for spring 2027 and indicated that a new theme would be announced at a later date. In recent years, the public opening has taken place on the Saturday or Sunday after the gala.
It has not been announced as of 5 October 2026. We do not anticipate it: we will update this guide as soon as the museum has published it.
One to two hours for the exhibition itself, more if you continue into the collections. In the first weeks, aim for the morning opening or the late openings on Fridays and Saturdays.
The Met Fifth Avenue is closed on Wednesdays and stays open late on Fridays and Saturdays. Opening hours may change: we check them on the museum's website for your dates.
Private or after-hours visits fall under the museum's own programmes; we neither sell nor promise them. We arrange the visit at the quietest hours and tell you, where relevant, what the museum offers.
Take it further
A week around the exhibition
Tell us your intended dates in May 2027: we set the visit from the public opening, and compose the rest — a hotel near the museum, tables, private evening, stylist — on a tailored quote and subject to availability.