Stars including Naomi Watts, Maluma depart The Mark Hotel for the Met Gala

Stars including Sam Smith, Maluma and Naomi Watts headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Met Gala, fashion’s biggest night, which celebrates the Costume Institute’s new exhibition “Costume Art.” This year’s event, co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour, highlights fashion as an art form and continues its role as a major fundraiser for the museum.

Aleksandra Michalska, Edward Baran/Reuters

5 May 2026 at 09:13:22

Stars including Naomi Watts, Maluma depart The Mark Hotel for the Met Gala

Naomi Watts poses during the Met Gala, an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute with this year's theme 'Costume Art' in New York City, New York, U.S., May 4, 2026.

Daniel Cole/Reuters

Stars including Sam Smith, Maluma and Naomi Watts left The Mark Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Monday (May 4), making their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for fashion’s biggest night.

The Met Gala will be co-chaired this year by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour, as the museum prepares to open its spring Costume Institute exhibition, “Costume Art.”

The annual fundraiser, held on the first Monday in May, raises money for the museum’s Costume Institute and is timed to celebrate the opening of its major spring fashion show. This year’s dress code is “Fashion is Art,” inviting guests to interpret fashion as an embodied art form.

The event raised about $31 million in 2025, the biggest gross in its 77-year history, according to museum officials.

Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz will co-chair the gala host committee, whose members include Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Angela Bassett, Misty Copeland, LISA, Sam Smith and Teyana Taylor.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, lead sponsors of the gala and exhibition, will serve as honorary chairs.

-Aleksandra Michalska, Edward Baran/Reuters