When guests arrive at the 2025 Met Gala for “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”—the spring 2025 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute—they’ll do so having considered the dress code, announced today as Tailored for You. Per The Met, the dress code is a nod to the exhibition’s focus on menswear and is “purposefully designed to provide guidance and invite creative interpretation.”
“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” will explore the role of sartorial style in forming Black identities, focusing on the emergence, significance, and proliferation of the Black dandy. Composed of clothing, photographs, fine art, historical texts, and artifacts, it’s the first Costume Institute exhibition to focus on menswear since 2003’s “Men in Skirts” and was inspired by guest curator Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.
“Dandyism can seem frivolous, but it often poses a challenge to or a transcendence of social and cultural hierarchies,” Miller said in today’s statement. “It asks questions about identity, representation, and mobility in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, and power. This exhibition explores dandyism as both a pronouncement and a provocation.”
The show also reflects The Met’s ongoing commitment to authentically diversifying its exhibitions. “What makes it possible to translate Monica’s book Slaves to Fashion into an exhibition,” said Costume Institute curator in charge Andrew Bolton, “is our collection of high-style menswear, which serves as a foundation for imagining and realising a sartorial history of Black dandyism.”
Now, about the dress code: Tailored for You can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, but it mostly means embracing looks reflective of one’s personal style. We can surely expect inspired takes on suiting—from versions of the zoot silhouette popularised by jazz musicians in the 1940s to the bold, colorful styles worn by Congolese sapeurs—though other menswear staples, such as hats, ties, canes, brooches, and pocket squares, are likely to have a strong showing too.
Indeed, attendees might look to Met Gala co-chairs Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, and Pharrell Williams—along with honorary chair LeBron James—for inspiration. Think Domingo arriving at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards in a mustard yellow Valentino suit and textured gold coat or Hamilton en route to the Miami Grand Prix paddock in a diamanté tank top and sleek black shades. We’ve also seen Rocky adorn his braided hair with silk scarves and beaded clips; Williams don Billionaire Boys Club graphic tees and Louis Vuitton leather flares of his own design; and James wear custom Thom Browne during the 2018 NBA Finals.
Though much of the guest list will remain under wraps, the Met Gala host committee was also announced today. This group—typically composed of personalities across art, film, literature, music, sports, and more—includes André 3000, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Grace Wales Bonner, Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens, Jordan Casteel, Dapper Dan, Doechii, Ayo Edebiri, Edward Enninful, Jeremy O. Harris, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Rashid Johnson, Regina King, Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, Audra McDonald, Janelle Monáe, Jeremy Pope, Angel Reese, Sha’Carri Richardson, Olivier Rousteing, Tyla, Usher, and Kara Walker. They’ll be among attendees seated for a dinner prepared by chef Kwame Onwuachi, amid decor by Cy Gavin, Derek McLane, and Raúl Àvila.
On view at The Met from May 10 through October 26, 2025, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” will feature 12 sections, each representing defining characteristics of the dandy aesthetic: Ownership, Presence, Distinction, Disguise, Freedom, Champion, Respectability, Jook, Heritage, Beauty, Cool, and Cosmopolitanism. Among artists bringing the exhibition to life are Torkwase Dyson, Tanda Francis, and Tyler Mitchell, as well as Iké Udé, who will serve as special consultant.
Ranged throughout will be artifacts—photos of W.E.B. Du Bois; works by Zora Neale Hurston and Nikki Giovanni; archival issues of Jet magazine—and of course, lots of fashion: pieces worn by Frederick Douglass and Harlem Renaissance–era performers, suiting from the wardrobe of André Leon Talley, and designs by Virgil Abloh, Dapper Dan, Foday Dumbuya, and more. Prior to the May opening, The Met will host a series of exhibition-related talks and programs for all ages, both at the museum and various institutions across New York City, including the Apollo Theater.
Whether guests draw inspiration from cultural giants in the exhibition, the stylish co-chairs and host committee members, or distinguished gentlemen in their own lives—fathers, grandfathers, uncles—we will be waiting with anticipation to see what guests wear to the 2025 Met Gala and, of course, look forward to celebrating the inimitable Black dandy.
This story was first published on Vogue.com.
