New York —

What’s the best dressed painting of all time?

It’s a question the Metropolitan Museum of Art hopes to answer with its next Costume Institute exhibition, which it revealed on Monday morning would be titled “Costume Art.” Opening May 10, the showcase will pair almost 200 artworks with around 200 garments and accessories in an effort to join the dots between fashion and fine art once and for all. It is also the idea that will animate what is arguably fashion’s splashiest, starriest night: the Met Gala.

“The title ‘Costume Art’ refers to the history of the costume institute,” said Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator, who selects each year’s theme, at a press conference. Fashion, he explained, has “the status of art because of, and not in spite of, its relation to the

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