Honoring the dress code of this year’s Met Gala , “ Fashion is Art,” felt a bit lacking early in the evening. Stunning gowns and a few crisp men’s looks were on full display — but where was the art, exactly? Soon after the carpet kicked into high gear, the blend of fashion and art — a request intended to celebrate the museum’s new exhibition, Costume Art , which opens to the public on Sunday, May 10 — began to reveal itself in myriad ways. Venus Williams explained to a red carpet reporter that her Swarovski gown and neckpiece were inspired by her own portrait, hanging in London’s National Gallery (now that’s clout), while Elizabeth Debicki indeed looked like one of the Grecian statues in the Met Museum exhibition, wearing a Greco-Roman draped gown by Vera Wang. With only a few exceptions, the art and history of handicraft in fashion enjoyed the spotlight, which is precisely the point of the museum’s Costume Institute.…