take a first look at ‘costume art’ as fashion meets art history at the MET

Tomas Kauer - News Writer and News Moderator

take a first look at ‘costume art’ as fashion meets art history at the MET

inside the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens Costume Art this May in New York, inaugurating the new Condé M. Nast Galleries with a show that puts fashion in direct dialogue with the museum’s wider collection.

designboom attended a preview of the exhibition where architects Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of Peterson Rich Office gave a tour of their new galleries. Their design frames the show as a continuous spatial sequence. Here, garments and artworks share the same platforms, materials, and sightlines. Rusticated plaster bases extend from the permanent architecture into the display plinths to create a consistent ground plane that links objects across disciplines.

Peterson describes the approach as a way to foreground the room itself as much as the objects within it. ‘We wanted to highlight the entirety of the space itself, with the exhibition design,‘ she explains, noting how the same palette carries across podiums and cases so that paintings, sculptures, and garments sit in close visual proximity.

Costume Art Metropolitan Museum
Costume Art, install view, Metropolitan Museum of Art. image © designboom

a layout built around bodies

At the center of Costume Art is a simple but far-reaching shift. Instead of organizing fashion chronologically or by designer, the exhibition moves through a series of body types, tracing how the human figure has been shaped, idealized, and interpreted across time. The Metropolitan Museum of Art draws from its full collection to construct these groupings and pairs garments with works that share formal or conceptual ground.

The categories range from the classical figure to bodies defined by age, pregnancy, or physical difference. This structure brings forward forms that have often been sidelined, placing them within the same visual field as canonical representations. It also shifts attention away from authorship and toward the body as a constant point of reference across centuries.

The pairing strategy operates on several levels. A contemporary suit printed with musculature appears beside an ancient marble athlete. A late nineteenth-century dress is positioned with a pointillist study of figures in motion. These juxtapositions invite close reading without relying on overt explanation, allowing connections to emerge through proximity and scale.

Costume Art Metropolitan Museum
Costume Art, install view, Metropolitan Museum of Art. image © designboom

seeing across the gallery

The architecture supports this open reading. Sheer scrims divide the galleries into zones while maintaining long views from front to back. ‘We use theatrical scrims to subdivide the galleries into these body sections,‘ PRO co-founder Miriam Peterson says. ‘They allow you to see through the space from the front and the back.‘ As visitors move, different body types overlap visually to create a layered field of figures that shift with each step.

That permeability extends to the placement of cases. Nathan Rich explains that each object is given its own framed opening, scaled to encourage a direct encounter: ‘In order to create this almost personal relationship with each object, we made these cases in these windows.‘ The casework draws from the rhythm of the existing structure, with permanent columns guiding how displays are broken down across the floor.

The sequence of rooms reinforces this variation. One gallery rises to a generous height, while another compresses into a lower, more enclosed space. Rich refers to them as ‘The Cathedral’ and ‘The Crypt,’ describing how the shift in ceiling height changes the way garments are approached. In the lower rooms, the distance between viewer and object narrows, bringing details of fabric and construction into focus.

Costume Art Metropolitan Museum
Costume Art, install view, Metropolitan Museum of Art. image © designboom

material, proximity, and the dressed body

Throughout Costume Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attention stays on the physical relationship between clothing and the body. The curatorial approach privileges material presence over image, placing emphasis on texture, weight, and construction. Garments are presented as objects shaped through use and contact, rather than as isolated visual forms.

This focus carries through to the mannequins themselves. Designed with polished steel heads, they reflect the surrounding space and the people moving through it. The gesture brings the visitor into the field of display, setting up a subtle exchange between historical figures and contemporary bodies.

In the lower galleries, this becomes more direct. ‘You see them very closely. Face to face,‘ Rich notes, describing how the compressed space fosters a sense of proximity. The thematic focus on shared experiences such as aging or physical change reinforces that closeness, grounding the exhibition in conditions that extend beyond any single period.

Costume Art Metropolitan Museum
Costume Art, install view, Metropolitan Museum of Art. image © designboom