Vogue’s May 2025 Cover Explores the Precision and Power of Black Tailoring

Vogue offers a glimpse into the lives and careers of four men who have helped shape the world of fashion. By Daria Shevtsova via Negative Space

When Vogue announced the theme of the 2025 Met Gala, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, it was immediately clear that this year’s event would step into deeper territory. Less spectacle, more study. Less aesthetic concept, more cultural archive.

With the release of its May 2025 issue, Vogue offers a glimpse into the Gala’s theme through four men whose lives and careers have challenged, reshaped and expanded the language of fashion: Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and A$AP Rocky. Each star appears on their own solo cover, all serving as co-chairs of this year's Gala, and each reflecting a different angle of the "Superfine" theme through structure, history or identity.

This year’s theme marks a shift in the Gala’s approach to telling stories through fashion. “Superfine” doesn’t point to a single designer or art movement. It asks audiences to consider tailoring as a cultural architecture that has evolved through survival, creativity and resistance.

The term “superfine” itself comes from cloth grading, used historically to describe high-quality wool, but its double meaning in this context is intentional: a reflection on refinement, and a reclamation of style codes that have historically been exclusionary.

That’s where the four co-chairs come in, not just as faces of fashion, but as examples of Black men who have shaped, and continue to shape, global style from the inside out.

Colman Domingo has made a name for himself through his singular on-screen presence and his reputation as one of the most consistently well-dressed men in Hollywood. His wardrobe, which is often vibrant, yet always intentional, pushes against the idea that elegance must be neutral to be taken seriously.

For Domingo, tailoring is not about formality. It’s about visibility. In a culture that has often reduced or caricatured Black masculinity, tailored clothing offers a way to assert dignity on one’s own terms.

​​His mother, stepfather and Belizean birth father all had their own “style and swagger,” Domingo told Vogue, remembering admiring the bell-bottoms of the session musicians who lived next door. 

In preparation for this year's Met Gala, Domingo met with Monica L. Miller, the guest curator for the Costume Institute's “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition, where he was unexpectedly moved by the sight of Black mannequins. “I am a Black man who loves style, loves tailoring, and it struck me that I had never seen images like that—of myself, saying, I belong in these clothes,” he told Vogue. “I always had to look for a vision outside of myself.”

Next, Lewis Hamilton has long blurred the line between athlete and style icon. In a sport historically dominated by white, European men, the seven-time Formula One champion has made himself impossible to ignore, not only with his racing, but with what he wears.

“Eventually, I had the courage to push beyond those boundaries and say, ‘Look, I want to turn up to the track in what I want to wear. I’m here now—you can’t get rid of me or change the way I dress,’” Hamilton told Vogue. 

Over the last five years, Hamilton has collaborated with emerging Black designers and stylists to create looks that challenge assumptions about masculinity, race and authority, bringing braided hair, pastel suits, pearl chokers and traditional African textiles into spaces that previously enforced a rigid code.

“Naturally, I hope this year’s Met Gala sparks conversation and reconfirms the connection between fashion and self-expression, and how deep it runs in Black culture. I hope it allows us to show that we have ownership of our identity… how we see ourselves and how we see one another, and how we use fashion to combat preconceived notions with humanity and dignity…I think this Met Gala sends a really strong message that we must continue to celebrate and elevate Black history,” Hamilton told Vogue. 

Moving on, Pharrell’s influence on fashion spans decades, but in his current role as the men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton, his approach to tailoring has taken on new meaning. The designer-musician has made it his mission to break open the idea of what men’s luxury should look and feel like and to make space for Black craftsmanship within it.

 “When I’m moving in those spaces, I always kind of like to bend the rules a little bit,” he says. “I’m not looking for attention, but I don’t necessarily want to blend in,” Williams told Vogue.

Williams is viewed as unapologetic by fashion and music lovers alike. In his early days, he rarely shied away from experimenting with streetwear, wearing Birkin bags and layered pearls. Today, he feels that the collective of Black voices is more needed than ever, beginning with the Met Gala.

“I want it to feel like the most epic night of power, a reflection of Black resiliency in a world that continues to be colonized, by which I mean policies and legislation that are nothing short of that,” Williams told Vogue. “We’ve got to invest in each other. We’ve got to connect with each other, because it’s going to take everybody to coalesce the force of Black and brown genius into one strong, reliable force. It’s our turn.”

Finally, at the heart of A$AP Rocky’s distinctive style lies an unconventional approach to fashion. What sets Rocky apart is his ability to treat tailoring as a palette rather than a blueprint, reassembling the rules into something uniquely his.

Rocky’s fashion legacy is deeply tied to flipping high-fashion silhouettes through a hip-hop lens, often with archival pieces or custom edits. His influence has normalized pearls on rappers, babushkas at fashion week and silk scarves on the streets of New York.

“What I was privy to and got to experience made me so lucky. I grew up with both parents; I got to see love. And being from Harlem, it just gives you this…pizzazz,” Rocky told Vogue.

This year’s Met Gala theme doesn’t just offer visual inspiration, but it poses real questions about visibility, value, and the systems that shape fashion history. 

“I’m looking forward to seeing everybody celebrate Black excellence,” Rocky told Vogue. “When people celebrate a different culture or race, sometimes it’s done with intent, sometimes with ulterior motives.” This year’s theme of “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” Rocky describes as “genuine…and very, very, very.… So many I want to say, but I’m just going to say, important.”

With Domingo, Hamilton, Williams and Rocky leading the charge, the 2025 Gala feels less like a costume party and more like a curated statement. Each co-chair, through his own lens, helps to expand the narrative around Black style through traditions, experiments and expressions.

“The moment is going to be huge. A testament to our legacy. A message that it can’t be erased,” Hamilton told Vogue.