The Met Gala 2025 theme of “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” not only brought out incredible fits, but fixed attention on the Black artists, designers and stylists who are shaping culture and fashion. The Met Gala theme supports this year’s Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute exhibition on Black dandyism, inspired by Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. It is also a tribute to Vogue legend Andre Leon Talley, who died in 2022.
In his speech opening the exhibition and event, co-chair and actor Colman Domingo said: “I stand here representing so many generations of men who have liberated themselves through style.” He remembered his stepfather, Clarence, who wore canvas pants and a flannel shirt Monday to Friday in his job as a floor sander. “But he came alive on Fridays, when he came home with a paycheck and a six-pack of beer. He wore sharkskin suits with good shoes—usually Florsheim shoes—and a long black wool trench coat. And he wore something that my mother gifted me right after his passing—a sapphire pinky ring that he wore on his well-manicured fingers. He kept his fingernails long, and I think that was such a defiance of his backbreaking work.”
Meanwhile, his father, who was an ordained minister, wore “flashy outfits” and “drove a canary yellow Cadillac with a white roof… You see where I get my inspiration.”
See some of the best looks at the Met Gala 2025 below.
