The party of the year had the potential to be a political firecracker. New York’s ultimate see-and-be-seen event, the Met Gala, was also the launch of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, a fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum honouring the subversive power of black style and the role of dandyism in expanding ideals of masculinity. In other words, the A-list were showing up to raise a toast to diversity under the watchful eye of an administration bent on reversing it.
On the night, the resistance came to party, not to protest. Glamour was the guest of honour, with politics very much the plus-one. The tempered tone of the night was typified by Kamala Harris, the most high-profile political guest, slipping in a side entrance to avoid the photographers. The night was a joyful and thoughtful celebration of black heritage and creativity, but it was not a forthright statement about politics in 2025.
Diana Ross wore a feathered ivory gown with the names of all her children and grandchildren embroidered on to an 18ft train, which took up most of the museum steps. Andre 3000 wore a grand piano on his back. Rihanna announced her third pregnancy in pinstripe bump and matching bustle. Hailey Bieber accessorised her Saint Laurent tuxedo with a martini, and no trousers. But the night did not reach the controversial heights of Kim Kardashian in Marilyn Monroe’s dress, or Rihanna as the pope – let alone the boldness of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2021 “Tax The Rich” dress.
Homages to André Leon Talley, Josephine Baker and Dapper Dan were recurring themes. It was the death two years ago of Talley, fashion editor of American Vogue and iconic black dandy, which first sparked the idea for this exhibition in curator Andrew Bolton. Talley “radiated joy”, Anna Wintour wrote in a recent tribute. Talley’s fingerprints were all over the red carpet, in Colman Domingo’s electric blue cape, a nod to Talley’s 2011Met Galalook, and in singer Doechii staging a pre-gala photo op swinging one of his trademark accessories, a Louis Vuitton tennis racket cover.
The fashion headline of the night was a revival of the sophisticated glamour of 1920s and 1930s Harlem. Singer FKA twigs wore a scalloped and feather trimmed Baker-esque cocktail dress with a chiffon stole, made for her by the black British designer Grace Wales Bonner. Zendaya wore an immaculate three-piece ivory “zoot suit”, the ultra-fitted silhouette popular in Harlem dancehalls in that era, which recalled the flamboyant tailoring of queer blues singer Gladys Bentley.
Dapper Dan, iconic 80-year-old tailor and godfather to hip-hop fashion, told red carpet reporters that his jazzy black-and-white tailoring, with matching two-tone hat and shoes “personifies the Harlem Renaissance”. Jazz-age fashions, which have been percolating on the moodboards of New York creatives since the Met’s 2024 show The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, looks to be the most influential fashion direction to emerge from the gala.
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Most striking among the Harlem Renaissance tributes was the return of the kiss curl. The slick, lacquered single loop of hair popularised by Baker a century ago was worn on the red carpet by celebrities from across the board: singer Dua Lipa, actor Sydney Sweeney, gymnast Simone Biles, basketball player Angel Reese and rapper Bad Bunny.
For white guests, there were anxieties around how best to honour black culture without risking accusations of appropriation. Gigi Hadid wore a gold Miu Miu dress that paid tribute to the work of black designer Zelda Wynn Valdes, who made gowns for Ella Fitzgerald and created the original Playboy Bunny waitress costume. Kendall Jenner wore a grey tailored two-piece, with a wrapped waist tied at the back in a style inspired by Nigerian tailoring traditions, which designer Torisheju Dumi said expressed “the versatility of black dandyism and what it means to a black British woman.”
The interpretations of the dress code, “Tailored for You”, was a reminder of how fluid men’s and women’s fashion has become. Men wore capes and skirts and brooches; women wore trousersuits and waistcoats. Walton Goggins, riding the crest of White Lotus mania, twirled for the cameras in his deconstructed Thom Browne coat and matching flared skirt. Zendaya’s three-piece trousersuit was made for her by Pharrell Williams, who designs menswear, not womenswear, for Louis Vuitton.