ATX Met Gala

What if Austin threw its own Met Gala?

We wanted an excuse to get dressed up, so we are throwing a party!

Join us and a few hundred of our friends for drinks, music, and an unreasonable amount of effort put into what everyone is wearing.

Costume Art

What you wear should be a piece of art!

The theme follows the Costume Institute's own 2026 line of inquiry: clothing as sculpture. It emphasizes shape, structure, texture, and detail. Go dramatic, strange, beautiful, or simple.

Structure

Sculptural shape, proportion, tailoring, and silhouette.

Surface

Texture, embroidery, draping, beading, unexpected materials.

Reference

Pull from art, history, architecture, fashion, or whatever medium catches your eye aesthetically.

If you need somewhere to start, borrow from the room:

A few references, pulled from the Met’s Costume Art exhibition.

Venus of Capua
Italian · 19th century Ensemble
Iris van Herpen · Fall/Winter 2011 Haute Couture Countess Lamsdorff
Franz Xaver Winterhalter · 1859 Anatomical Studies of Legs
Eugène Delacroix · 19th century Georgia O’Keeffe — Hands
Alfred Stieglitz · 1919 Read’s Crinoline Sketches, No. 9
Anonymous, British · 1859 The Blind Man’s Meal
Pablo Picasso · 1903 Two Nightingales in a Rose Bush
‘Abdullah Bukhari, Ottoman · ca. 1725–45 Blood (Le Sang)
Jean Dubuffet · 1958 Picture Frame
House of Carl Fabergé · 1904–8 Éventailliste, Fan Maker
Recueil de planches · 1762–72 Frida Kahlo
Nickolas Muray · 1939