Fashion’s Super Bowl Monday: The 2025 Met Gala

Photo by Thể Phạm via Pexels.

On Monday, May 5, 2025, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted its annual Costume Institute benefit, commonly known as the Met Gala. The theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” called for the re-examination of the canon by positioning historically Black design practices at the center as a foundation for the evolution of masculinity and tailoring. 

The title itself, “Superfine,” represents the material history of menswear. “Superfine” was a classification of wool used in 18th- and 19th-century tailoring, connoting privilege and social access. This gestures to the legacy of the Black dandy as a liminal figure who navigates colonial modernity by studying its codes, turning them against the logic of exclusion that produced them. 

From a theoretical standpoint, this theme resonates with Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry, whereby the colonized person imitates the look and behavior of the colonizer to such an extent that both reproduces and subverts power. However, within the tradition of Black expression, this mimicry transforms into something more radical. In the theory of disidentification, popularized by José Esteban Muñoz, subordinated groups are not going to interact with dominant cultural formations in a process of mere assimilation or rejection, but rather by reconfiguring those formations to their own purposes. Meaning: The Black dandy does not merely imitate European fashion; he reworks it.

The theme also raises questions of representation, as it is the first Costume Institute exhibition to exclusively center Black designers and wearers.

Co-chair of the event, Colman Domingo, wore a show-stopping look, paying tribute to the legacy of Vogue’s first African-American creative director, André Leon Talley. Domingo wore a royal blue Valentino cape, with a gold breastplate, which he subsequently swapped out for a sophisticated multi-patterned textured tailored suit. 

Pharrell Williams, another co-chair, sported a pearl-embellished (15,000, to be exact) Louis Vuitton coat, reflecting his role as the brand's menswear creative director. While some critics expected something more experimental, the understated sophistication and sharp tailoring of the ensemble fit the evening’s look.

Teyana Taylor’s look, which was co-designed with Academy Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter, featured a pinstripe suit, red velvet waistcoat, floor-length frock coat and dramatic trimmings. The elements of the look, namely the red durag under the top hat, spoke to Black cultural identity. 

Gigi Hadid’s custom Miu Miu gown paid tribute to fashion designer Zelda Wynn Valdes and Josephine Baker. The liquid gold halter dress, which was smothered in multicolored beads, was a close replica of Baker’s 1951 getup. 

Zendaya was styled by long-time partner-in-fashion Law Roach in a bespoke white three-piece Louis Vuitton zoot suit custom-designed by the previously mentioned Pharrell Williams. The look featured a single-breasted tuxedo jacket, waistcoat, silk tie and shirt and flared pants. It was further accompanied by a wide-brimmed hat and a Bulgari diamond Serpenti back brooch. The look was a modern interpretation of the zoot suit, a garment historically associated with Black and Latino youth culture in the 1940s.

Appearing at the Met Gala for the first time in more than two decades, Diana Ross partnered with Nigerian fashion designer Ugo Mozie and her son Evan Ross. Ross modeled a beaded white gown flanked by a similar feathered headpiece and an 18-foot train with her five children (Rhonda, Tracee, Chudney, Ross and Evan) and eight grandchildren's (Raif, Callaway, Everlee, Leif, Indigo, Jagger, Bronx and Ziggy) names embroidered onto it. Her look was a poignant tribute to her family and the importance that is placed on heritage and lineage in Black culture.

This year’s carpet undermined the presumption that fashion is superficial. Instead, it demonstrated how design choices such as tailoring, fabric and silhouette can function as forms of self-definition and resistance. Black fashion has never been about style alone. It has been about control over one’s image and narrative, especially in spaces that have long withheld both. The theme was not only timely but necessary; it encouraged future generations to take seriously the political and cultural labor embedded in the act of getting dressed.