Venus Williams remembers, at 14 years old, her mother sewing her first tennis skirt. “I fell in love,” Williams said at this morning’s press conference for the 2026 Met Gala and exhibition, “Costume Art.” “I fell in love with watching something come to life like that, and it gave me a deep appreciation for fashion at its core: how it’s made, how it moves, how it makes you feel, and how it tells a story. And how, a lot of times, as we’ll see, it makes history.”
Williams, who serves as a co-chair for the 2026 Met Gala, is no stranger to making history—for both her athletic prowess and her confident, expressive approach to dressing on and off the court. For that reason, she makes an ideal steward for this year’s exhibition, which explores the way fashion and art have depicted the human body, and what that, then, says about the body’s role in culture and society.
“Fashion distinguished me from my fellow players—because it was a contest,” she said with a sly smile. “About power, strength, will, skill, and being the best-dressed. And I tried to win it all. It also allowed me to connect with passionate fans across the world,” she said. “But most of all, it allowed me to connect to myself.”
From that homemade tennis skirt to full-fledged fashion icon, Williams has come to not just embrace the joys of getting dressed daily, but to understand its more profound effects. “Something that I’ve admired about clothing and dress is that it has the power to do two things,” she said. “It reminds us of the characteristics and experiences that we all share, and, at the same time, it reveals something new about ourselves and about the world around us.”
This morning’s press conference brought together luminaries of the fashion world—Thom Browne, Michael Kors, Tory Burch, and Saint Lauren’s Anthony Vaccarello, among them—to not just fête the exhibition’s opening, but also the fact that it is the coming-out party for the Costume Institute’s new permanent Condé M. Nast Galleries. Relocated from a smaller location in the basement, the new space is an expansive 12,000 square feet and is located just off the museum’s Great Hall on the first floor. This move demonstrates the growing importance and influence of fashion in the hallowed halls of The Met.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 04: A view inside the venue during the press conference for the 2026 Met Gala celebrating “Costume Art” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 04, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
