This Year’s Met Gala Theme Delivered One Of The Best Red Carpets Yet

We've just had the first Monday in May - which means the Met Gala (aka the fashion Olympics, aka the style Oscars) is over for another year. Raising money for The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, with a reported ticket price of $75,000, the event is presided over by the fashion industry's most-recognised figurehead: Anna Wintour, who personally signs off every single look that walks down the red carpet. As the world starts watching the steps outside The Met, eyeing the most exquisite outfits and jaw-dropping beauty looks of the 1%, here's everything we learnt about this year's theme from that famous blue carpet.

This year's Met Gala theme

This year’s theme was Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, an expansive study of Black style, from the 18th century to now, through the lens of the Black dandy. It’s based on Monica L. Miller’s book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, who is serving as a guest curator of the exhibition and is also professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University.

It will certainly be one for the history books. The exhibition will exclusively spotlight designs by people of colour - including LaQuan Smith, Grace Wales Bonner and Saul Nash - an attempt by the institution to showcase voices from the fashion world that hadn’t previously been called upon by The Met. ‘I wanted to stage a show on race that could use our collection to tell a story that had been absent from the conversation both within the museum and outside,’ Andrew Bolton, curator at the Costume Institute, told The New York Times.

The exhibition will be organised into 12 sections, including 'Disguise', 'Champion', 'Respectability', 'Beauty' and 'Cool', with both historic and contemporary items on display including clothing, accessories, paintings, photographs and decorative arts, spanning four centuries of history from the 1700s to today. A 1986 photograph of legendary fashion editor André Leon Talley, taken by Arthur Elgort, is one of the photographs that will be displayed, as well as a candid portrait of Muhammad Ali, who is captured during a suit fitting in 1966 (the photographer is Thomas Hoepker).

Speaking about the Black dandy in a video posted on The Met's Instagram, Miller said: 'Fashion and dress have been used in a contest of power and aesthetics for Black people from the time of enslavement to today. And dandyism has often been used by individuals to manipulate the relationship between clothing, identity and power. Style and its role in forming Black identifies in the Atlantic diaspora is at the heart of the show.' Miller continues: 'It was imposed on Black men in Europe during the 1700s as the Atlantic slave trade created a trend in fashionably dressed, or dandified, servants. Free and enslaved Black people came to understand the power of clothing and style in signalling hierarchies of race, class and gender. Over time, dandyism gave Black men and women an opportunity to use clothing, gesture, irony and wit to transform their identities, and imagine new ways of embodying political and social possibilities.'

Who were the co-chairs of the Met Gala 2025?

The Met Gala’s co-chairs are titans in their own artistic spheres and four men who have always been considered best dressed at previous Met Galas: A$AP Rocky, Colman Domingo (who stole the show at last year's Met Gala, arriving with a bouquet of calla lilies), Lewis Hamilton and Pharrell Williams. LeBron James, meanwhile, will be serving as honorary chair.

The event also has an illustrious host committee, which this year includes a legion of influential Black artists from all creative disciplines including Ayo Edebiri, André 3000, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dapper Dan, Simone Biles, Sha'Carri Richardson, Usher and Grace Wales Bonner, whose campaign image is the cover of the exhibition catalogue.

In the press release accompanying the news about this year's Met Gala, Sha'Carri Richardson said: ‘Our style isn’t just what we wear - it’s how we move, how we own our space, how we tell our story without saying a word. Fashion sets us apart, but it also brings us together - whether you’re shining on the track, commanding the stage, or just making the streets of New York your runway.’

Usher, meanwhile, said: 'I’m honored to be part of such a long-standing tradition with The Met. The theme this year is not only timely but also speaks to our rich culture that should always be widely celebrated.'

What was the Met Gala dress code?

The dress code was 'Tailored for You', putting an emphasis on tailoring and elements of dress that you would normally associate with menswear. Expect to see high-fashion suiting with more than a dash of personal style (the dress code does specify 'you', after all).

Who attended the Met Gala 2025?

Speaking of guests, who's invited is a closely-guarded secret until the night itself, but the list of ticket-holders at this year's hardly left anything to be desired: from Diana Ross, who shut down the red carpet in a gown designed by her grandson and Ugo Mozie, to Rihanna, who revealed her third pregnancy, and Doechii, making her debut at the Met Gala - the attendance was - as per usual - seriously starry.

Who were the best dressed guests at the Met Gala 2025?

Needless to say, the stakes are always high at the Met Gala, but this year’s guests delivered with their interpretations of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. From gowns with a glove-like fit (Cynthia Erivo’s beaded, sculpted Givenchy) - to suiting that paid fitting tribute to the Black dandy (Colman Domingo in checkered, polka-dotted Valentino), the red carpet was the best it’s been in recent years.

Special mentions go to Jodie Turner-Smith, whose leather bustle coat was inspired by the 19th century equestrian Selina Lazevski, and Zendaya, dressed in Louis Vuitton, whose tailor-made three-piece suit, designed by Pharrell Williams, referenced the spirit of Black dandyism and its zoot suits, as well as riffing on the ‘80s notion of power dressing. Elsewhere, there was a plethora of Dandy-inspired headwear (Teyana Taylor's feathered fedora, ditto Tracee Ellis Ross), and tailoring-turned-ball-gowns (Paloma Elsesser in Ferragamo; Kim Kardashian in Chrome Hearts). Keep scrolling for some of the best-dressed stars at the 2025 Met Gala.

Natalie Hammond is senior fashion news editor at Grazia. She loves winter, hates summer and can often be found writing about the weather (and what on earth to wear).