This year’s Met Gala, centered on the Costume Institute exhibition Costume Art and the dress code “Fashion is Art,” returned to a conversation that has always felt personal to me. Fashion’s relationship to art is not a new debate. It has been discussed for decades, but the Met brings it back into focus every spring.
I watched some of the coverage, noticed the looks, and thought about the idea behind “Fashion is Art.” But what stayed with me was not the red carpet. It was what the theme was really pointing toward.
There has always been resistance to calling fashion art. Karl Lagerfeld, one of the most celebrated designers of the 20th century, called it “applied art”, useful, beautiful, but not quite the same thing. Rei Kawakubo, Miuccia Prada, and others have said similar things. Fashion, they argue, is an industry. A creative one, but an industry nonetheless.
I understand the distinction. But I have never found it particularly useful for how I actually experience fashion. The question, for me, was never simply whether fashion could resemble a painting or belong inside a museum. It was something more personal, what fashion does, and has always done, in my own life.
Getting Dressed as Composition
When I get dressed in the morning, on a good day, when I am paying attention, it feels like composing something. A combination of colors, proportions, textures, and details. The way one thing relates to another, and whether the whole comes together in a way that feels right. It requires inspiration. Sometimes I find it quickly, sometimes it takes longer. When it comes together, there is a satisfaction to it, the same feeling I get when I find the right words for a piece of writing, or when a room comes together in exactly the right way. Something settles into place. It feels intentional and genuinely mine.
This is not about following what is trending. I am drawn to neutral colors, minimal details, pieces that feel considered rather than loud. But within that, there is still a process of composition happening, still a set of choices being made about what belongs and what doesn’t, about what I want to communicate and how.
Andrew Bolton, the curator behind this year’s Costume Art exhibition, described it well: “Fashion isn’t only something we see. It’s something we wear. It shapes posture, gesture, presence, and perception. In wearing clothes, we don’t simply express who we are. We become who we are, which makes fashion different from any other art form. It collapses the boundary between subject and object.”
That last part is what interests me most. The idea that fashion collapses the boundary between subject and object. You are not just wearing something. Over time, it becomes part of how you understand yourself.
Fashion and Becoming
I think fashion has genuinely helped me become who I am. Not just reflected it, actually shaped it. There is something about deciding, every day, how you want to present yourself to the world that slowly shapes the way you see yourself. A confidence that comes not from what you are wearing specifically, but from the act of choosing deliberately.
For me, it happened gradually. Getting dressed with more intention, paying attention to what felt right and what didn’t, building a relationship with my own aesthetic over time. It gave me confidence in ways I did not expect. Not the confidence of being noticed, but something quieter, the confidence that comes from feeling aligned with who you are. From showing up somewhere and feeling comfortable in your own presence.
I think this is what the Bolton quote is really pointing at. We do not just express who we are through clothes. We practice who we are. We rehearse it, refine it, and over time it starts to feel natural.
The Connection Between Fashion, Art, and Everything Else
I have always noticed that a love for fashion tends to travel with a love for art and interiors. The same attention to color, proportion, texture, and atmosphere appears in all three. The way people approach clothing often carries into the spaces they create around themselves.
This is not a coincidence. Fashion, art, and interior design are shaped by many of the same instincts. The appreciation for a beautiful fabric is not so different from the appreciation for a well-hung painting or a room that feels exactly right. They all rely on similar elements, paying attention to how things look, feel, and relate to each other.
A Daily Practice
Fashion as art is not only what happens on a runway or at the Met. It happens every morning, in the quiet decisions we make about how we want to show up in the world.
Not every day is a good fashion day. Sometimes you just get dressed. But on the days when you are paying attention, when you take a moment to think about what you are putting together and why, there is something meaningful in that. A small way of paying attention to yourself.
That is what I mean when I say fashion is art. Not that every outfit is a masterpiece. But that the practice of dressing with intention, of treating what you wear as a form of expression rather than just a daily necessity, is a creative act. One that becomes part of how you move through the world.