Costume Art

About the Exhibition

This exhibition combines costumes selected from the Metropolitan Museum's collection with works of art, exploring the essential relationship between clothing and the body. Centered on Western art, it traces the connection between costume and art from antiquity to the present, exploring relationships that are formal, conceptual, aesthetic, political, personal, universal, visual, symbolic, playful, and profound. The exhibition is organized into sections themed around body types, emphasizing motifs that persist across time and culture. Held in a new roughly 12,000-square-foot gallery, it presents a total of around 100 works pairing costume with art from the Met's collection. Visitors can gain a deep understanding of how clothing connects to the body through the distinctive interplay between costume and art.