Celebrities began to flood to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in their tailored best on a rainy Monday in New York to kick off the first Met Gala to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years to have a menswear theme.
The gala, a charity event and fundraiser for the Met’s Costume Institute, has traditionally been timed to mark the opening of its annual fashion exhibition, which is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” this year.
Colman Domingo, one of the evening’s hosts, wore a pleated, gold adorned cape over a grey suit. His look evoked the late Andre Leon Talley, the fashion icon who made history as a rare Black editor at Vogue.
Domingo arrived with Vogue’s Anna Wintour, the mastermind of the gala, dressed in baby blue.
In addition to those two, the co-chairs of the event are Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and musicians A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams.
“I want it to feel like the most epic night of power,” Williams, who is also the Louis Vuitton menswear director, told Vogue recently. “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.”
The red carpet for fashion’s biggest night officially started at 6 p.m. ET. Early arrivals included Emma Chamberlain in a pinstripe gown and Teyana Taylor, who went for a stunning Zoot Suit look with a red, feather-adorned top hat and a huge matching cape dripping with flowers and bling.
The official dress code for gala guests is “Tailored for You,” inspired by Black dandyism.
It’s “a nod to the exhibition’s focus on suiting and menswear, from specific silhouettes to various fabrics and accessories — that is purposefully designed to both provide guidance and invite creative interpretation,” according to a press release.
NBA superstar LeBron James was slated to attend the event for the first time after being announced as honorary co-chair, but said Monday he would have to bow out due to the sprained knee he suffered in the Lakers’ season-ending Game 5 loss to the Timberwolves.
“Hate to miss an historical event!” he said in a post on X on Monday, adding that his wife, Savannah, would still attend.
This year, organizers announced they would also be resurrecting the tradition of a “host committee,” made up of stars in a wide range of fields: athletes Simone Biles and husband Jonathan Owens; Angel Reese and Sha’Carri Richardson; filmmakers Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee and Regina King; actors Ayo Edebiri, Audra McDonald and Jeremy Pope; musicians Doechii, Usher, Tyla, Janelle Monae and Andre 3000; author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; artists Jordan Casteel, Rashid Johnson and Kara Walker; playwrights Jeremy O. Harris and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; and fashion figures Grace Wales Bonner, Edward Enninful, Dapper Dan and Olivier Rousteing.
The gala raises the bulk of the curation budget for the museum’s Costume Institute. But the glitzy event, with its emphasis on high-end fashion and big-budget stars, has faced criticisms for decades that it is a parade of wealth that draws attention from other issues.
On Monday, pro-Palestinian protesters massed on the streets near the Met Gala, waving flags and chanting “Free Palestine.”
Inside tonight’s theme
The theme of the gala is inspired by the annual spring exhibition, which this year is based in large part on Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, a book by Monica L. Miller that looks at the political coding of style within the Black community.
Miller is guest curator of the exhibit, which opens to the public on Saturday.
“Historical manifestations of dandyism range from absolute precision in dress and tailoring to flamboyance and fabulousness in dress and style,” Miller wrote in the exhibit catalogue.
“Whether a dandy is subtle or spectacular, we recognize and respect the deliberateness of the dress, the self-conscious display, the reach for tailored perfection, and the sometimes subversive self-expression.”
It’s the first Costume Institute exhibition since 2003’s “Men in Skirts” to focus exclusively on menswear.
How the dress code at the gala goes, in terms of taste and style, is anyone’s guess. Wintour has a hand in virtually all things gala, so the presumption is things can’t go too far off the rails. She recently knocked down the rumour that she approves all looks, telling Good Morning America she’ll weigh in if asked.
The exhibit draws on other sources beyond Miller’s book. It’s organized into 12 sections, each symbolizing a characteristic of dandy style as defined by Zora Neale Hurston in her 1934 essay, “Characteristics of Negro Expression.”
Among them: ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, respectability and heritage. Assuming gala guests — or their stylists — have done their research, some of these factors are expected to play out on the museum steps which serve as the event’s red carpet.
The guest list amounts to about 450 high-profile people from technology, sports, art, entertainment and more. The mix, Williams says, is a must.
“It’s so important to me to have successful Black and brown people of every stripe in the room: not just athletes and actors and actresses, entertainers, but also authors, architects, folks from the fintech world,” he 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.”
The gala had already raised a record $31 million US, Metropolitan Museum of Art CEO Max Hollein said Monday — the first time the fundraiser for the Met’s Costume Institute has crossed the $30 million US mark and eclipsing last year’s haul of more than $26 million US.
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