Metropolitan Museum of Art opens Costume Art exhibit celebrating diverse body types
Updated
Updated · The Associated Press · May 3
Metropolitan Museum of Art opens Costume Art exhibit celebrating diverse body types
9 articles · Updated · The Associated Press · May 3
The New York show launches at Monday’s Met Gala, opens publicly on 10 May and runs to 10 January 2027 in new main-floor galleries.
Curator Andrew Bolton said the 400-item exhibition reclaims corpulent, disabled, pregnant and aging bodies through fashion-art pairings and mannequins modelled on real people.
Highlights include work linked to Aimee Mullins, Sinéad Burke and Aariana Rose Philip, while the Costume Institute’s record $31m 2025 gala haul helped secure a permanent, more prominent space.
Will the Met’s bold embrace of body diversity in 'Costume Art' actually inspire lasting change in the global fashion industry?
How were the real people selected to model the groundbreaking mannequins, and what impact did their input have on the exhibit’s authenticity?
Could treating diverse bodies as museum art objects risk reinforcing the idea of difference as spectacle rather than achieving true normalization?