Black fashion is taking heart stage on the 2025 Met Gala, and this yr’s theme celebrates its legacy and innovation. As attendees step into the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork’s Costume Institute exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Model,” they’ll be challenged to interpret the gown code — “Tailor-made for You” — by way of their very own inventive lens.
Similar to the exhibit, the night’s vogue directive is a tribute to the refined, sharp tailoring of males’s vogue. Impressed by Monica L. Miller’s seminal work, “Slaves to Style: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identification,” this yr’s Met Gala will highlight the intersection of vogue and Black identification, notably by way of the idea of the Black dandy — a determine who makes use of private fashion as each self-expression and defiance.
“Dandyism can appear frivolous, nevertheless it typically poses a problem to or a transcendence of social and cultural hierarchies,” Miller mentioned, per Vogue. “It asks questions on identification, illustration, and mobility in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, and energy. This exhibition explores dandyism as each a pronouncement and a provocation.”
Honoring the legacy of Black dandyism, the Met Gala has made historical past by choosing its first-ever all-Black male cohort of co-chairs, that includes vogue visionaries Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, and Lewis Hamilton. Additional amplifying Black excellence, Anna Wintour, who has led the Met Gala for many years, unveiled the occasion’s star-studded host committee which options the likes of André 3000, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Grace Wales Bonner, Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens, Jordan Casteel, Dapper Dan, Doechii, Ayo Edebiri, Edward Enninful, Jeremy O. Harris, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Rashid Johnson, Regina King, Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, Audra McDonald, Janelle Monáe, Jeremy Pope, Angel Reese, Sha’Carri Richardson, Olivier Rousteing, Tyla, Usher, and Kara Walker.
“It’s an enormous second for the nation. For acknowledging the place we’re and the place we need to be. … We’re at a crossroads as we expect by way of what it means for all of us to be right here collectively,” Miller, who will function the exhibit’s visitor curator, defined. “I’m blissful that we are able to speak about sophisticated historical past, about slavery, and revolution.”
Because the Met Gala’s crimson carpet dazzles with Black brilliance, the exhibition itself shall be a wealthy tapestry of cultural artifacts and archival treasures. Count on to see works by Zora Neale Hurston and Nikki Giovanni, classic problems with Jet journal, uncommon pictures of W.E.B. Du Bois, clothes as soon as worn by Frederick Douglass, and designs from trailblazers like Dapper Dan, Foday Dumbuya, and the late Virgil Abloh.
Mark your calendars: the 2025 Met Gala is about for Might 5, promising an evening the place vogue, tradition, and historical past collide in an unforgettable celebration of Black fashion.
