The party of the year had the potential to be a political firecracker. The New York Ultimate See-And-Seen event, the Met Gala, was also the launch of superfine: Tailoring Black Style, a fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum honoring the subversive power of the black style and the role of dandies in the expansion of the ideals of masculinity. In other words, list A was presented to raise a toast to diversity under the watchful eye of a determined administration to reverse it.
At night, the resistance came to the party, not to protest. The glamor was the guest of honor, with politics the more one. The soaked tone of the night was characterized by Kamala Harris, the most prominent political guest, slipping into a side entrance to avoid photographers. The night was a joyful and thoughtful celebration of black heritage and creativity, but it was not a direct declaration on politics in 2025.
Diana Ross wore an ivory feathered dress with the names of all her children and grandchildren embroidered on an 18-foot train, which took most of the museum steps. Andre 3000 wore a piano on his back. Rihanna announced her third pregnancy in bunch with fine stripes and matching agitation. Hailey Bieber has accessorized her tuxedo Saint Laurent with a Martini and no pants. But the night did not reach the controversial heights of Kim Kardashian in the dress of Marilyn Monroe, or Rihanna like the Pope – not to mention the audacity of the dress of Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez in 2021 “Tax The Rich”.
The tributes to André Leon Talley, Joséphine Baker and Dapper Dan were recurring themes. It was the death two years ago from Talley, editor -in -chief of the fashion of American Vogue and emblematic Black Dandy, who first sparked the idea of this exhibition in the curator Andrew Bolton. Talley “Radiated Joy”, wrote Anna Wintour in a recent tribute. Talley fingerprints were everywhere on the red carpet, in the electric blue cap of Colman Domingo, a nod to Talley 2011 Met Gala Look, and in the singer Doechii organizing a pre-Gala photo that swings one of its brand accessories, a Tennis Raquette cover Louis Vuitton.
The title of night fashion was a renewal of sophisticated glamor from the 1920s and 1930s. The singer Fka Twigs wore a baker’s cocktail dress in Feat and feathers with a foam, made for her by the British black designer Grace Waler. Zendaya wore an immaculate ivory “Zoot” “the ultra-adjusted popular silhouette in Harlem’s dancehalls at that time, which recalled the flamboyant seam of the singer of Blues Queer Gladys Bentley.
Dapper Dan, an emblematic 80-year-old tailor and a hip-hop fashion sponsor, told journalists from the red carpet that his jazzy sewing in black and white, with a hat and matching two-tone shoes “personifies the Harlem Renaissance”. The jazz modes, which have grieved on the moodboards of New York creatives since the show of the MET in 2024, the rebirth of Harlem and transatlantic modernism, seems to be the most influential fashion direction to emerge from the gala.
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The most striking among Harlem’s rebirth tributes was the return of the Curl kiss. The unique smooth and lacquered hair loop popularized by Baker a century ago was brought to the red carpet by celebrities everywhere: the singer Dua Lipa, the actor Sydney Sweeney, the gymnast Simone Biles, the basketball player Angel Reese and the rapper Bad Bunny.
For white guests, there were anxieties around the best way to honor black culture without risking accusations of credits. Gigi Hadid wore a Miu Miu in gold dress which paid tribute to the work of the black designer Zelda Wynn Valdes, who made dresses for Ella Fitzgerald and created the original costume of the waitress Playboy Bunny. Kendall Jenner wore a gray two -piece, with an enveloped size attached to the rear in a style inspired by Nigerian sewing traditions, who said designer Torisheju Dumi, expressed the versatility of black dandyism and what it means for a black British woman “.
The interpretations of the dress code, “adapted for you”, recalled how the fashion for men and women has become fluid. Men wore capes, skirts and pins; Women wore pants and giles. Walton Goggins, riding the ridge of White Lotus Mania, turned to the cameras in her Thom Browne coat deconstructs and his matching flared skirt. The three -piece combination of Zendaya was made for her by Pharrell Williams, who designs men’s clothes, not women’s clothes, for Louis Vuitton.