Tonight’s Met Gala will focus on the aesthetic and political roots of Black dandyism fashion through the 2025 theme: “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.”
The gala, often deemed fashion’s biggest night, serves as a fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it serves as a deeper event for some: actor and gala co-chair Colman Domingo said being involved in this year’s event “means more to me than I ever imagined.”
“It’s someone who’s been creating art and spaces, someone who has knowledge and history, who’s always trying to interrogate who we are, and understanding who’s come before,” Domingo said in a video posted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday.
Generally, this year’s theme represents a style shaped by culture and resistance. Here’s what to know about the theme before tonight’s event kicks off.
When Is The 2025 Met Gala?
The 2025 Met Gala will take place on Monday, May 5, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
As usual, the event is scheduled for the first Monday in May and serves as the celebratory launch for the Costume Institute’s annual spring exhibition. The event is invite-only.
What Is This Year’s Met Gala Theme?
The theme for this year’s Gala and accompanying exhibition is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.”
This year’s show opens to the public on May 10 and runs through October 26, according to The Met’s official exhibition page.
AP Photo
The exhibit is organized into 12 thematic sections—such as “Champion,” “Respectability,” “Cosmopolitanism” and “Heritage”—highlighting how Black individuals have used style to shape identity and challenge societal norms.
The Met describes the show as exploring “style as a mode of distinction and resistance—within a society impacted by race, gender, class, and sexuality.”
What Is Black Dandyism?
Black dandyism came from the intersection of African and European style traditions, per the Met. The exhibition is inspired by Monica Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.
While European dandyism emerged in the 18th century as a movement to represent societal norms, Black dandyism reimagined these codes in a racialized context.
In Miller’s book, she writes: “The black dandy’s style is, from the beginning, always simultaneously personal, cultural, representative of ‘the race,’ and about representation even as it evaluates norms of racialization, class privileges, gender assignments, and the rules of sexuality in ways similar to that of his European dandy brothers.”
AP/Jocelyn Noveck
According to The New York Times, the Met’s new exhibition “investigates how dandyism, a style of elevated dress once imposed upon enslaved people, was remade by Black aesthetes into a tool of social mobility and self-definition.”
Some of the featured items in the exhibit include a leather jacket by couturier Dapper Dan, along with André Leon Talley’s monogrammed luggage, per the Times.
Who Is Attending The 2025 Met Gala?
As is tradition, the Met Gala’s guest list remains tightly curated and invitation-only. Guests typically arrive from 5:30 to 8 p.m. ET.
Along with actor Domingo, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, rapper A$AP Rocky race car driver Lewis Hamilton and music producer Pharrell Williams will host the event. Basketball star LeBron James will serve as honorary chair.
Celebrity regulars such as Zendaya and Kim Kardashian are also rumored to be attending.
What Was The First Met Gala Theme?
The Met Gala debuted in 1948 as a fundraiser for the Costume Institute. But the tradition of themed Met Galas began in 1973 with the exhibition “The World of Balenciaga.” Since then, the Met Gala themes have evolved to reflect topics ranging from “Heavenly Bodies” to “American Independence,” increasingly engaging with questions of identity, race and politics in fashion.
Met Gala Boycott: What We Know
Jack Schlossberg, grandson of President John F. Kennedy, has publicly declared a boycott of the 2025 Met Gala, criticizing the event’s extravagance amid global crises.
Schlossberg, a Harvard-educated attorney who has written for Vogue, took aim at the annual benefit gala in a series of social media posts.
“I love to party, and I’ve been to the Met Gala before. I had a great time,” the 31-year-old said in a video on Instagram on April 24. “But this year, with so much happening around the world and at home, I cannot in good conscience go to the Met Gala.”
