Met Gala guests (and the rest of us) learn the next dress code: 'Fashion is Art'

Beyoncé has her marching orders

NEW YORK -- You certainly don’t have to tell Beyoncé this: Fashion, when deployed properly, is nothing less than art.

Now, the fashion-forward superstar will have another chance to make the point. When she co-chairs the Met Gala in May, all eyeballs will be glued to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see how one of the most watched women on the planet, in her eighth gala appearance, interprets the dress code: “Fashion is art.”

The museum announced the dress code Monday, along with some gala-related details including new guest names. Joining the top co-chairs — Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman,tennis champ Venus Williams and Vogue's Anna Wintour — is a “host committee” chaired by designer Anthony Vaccarello and filmmaker Zoë Kravitz, and featuring names from Sabrina Carpenter and Teyana Taylor to Lena Dunham and Misty Copeland. Additions include actor Angela Bassett and athlete Aimee Mullins.

They, and everyone else attending, will be figuring out what to wear come May 4. The code seems to have been chosen for maximum flexibility. And, quips Andrew Bolton, curator of the Met's Costume Institute: “Hopefully, it will put an end to the rather obsolete 'Is Fashion Art?' debate once and for all.”

For Bolton, though, the show’s the thing, to paraphrase Hamlet. As gala-watchers know, the big party is not only a fundraiser for the institute — a self-funding department — but a launchpad for the annual spring fashion exhibit. Curated by Bolton and his team, this year's show, “Costume Art,” seeks to present fashion as a through-line in the entire history of art.