At 2025 Met Gala, a parade of stars in everything from pinstripe gowns to bold check

A rainy Met Gala got under way with a tuxedoed choir and a trend true to the menswear theme: Emma Chamberlain and other women in pinstripe gowns. Chamberlain and Zuri Hall were among those who wore sleek, sexy gowns that play on men’s suiting in pinstripes and other details. “I expect this to be a frequent thing tonight, women wanting to maintain a traditionally feminine dress silhouette while still respecting the theme,” said William Dingle, director of style for blackmenswear.com, a cultural impact agency that focuses on uplifting black men. The suggested dress code, “Tailored for You”, was inspired by black dandyism. Teyana Taylor 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 zoot suit was popularised in Harlem, New York, in the 1940s. Colman Domingo, one of the evening’s hosts, wore a pleated, gold adorned cape over a grey and black suit, his jacket a pearled windowpane design with a huge dotted black flower. His look, including his cape and a dotted black scarf at his neck, evoked the late André Leon Talley, the fashion icon who made history as a rare black editor at Vogue. Domingo arrived with Vogue’s Anna Wintour, dressed in a baby blue coat over a shimmery white gown. Fellow co-chair Lewish Hamilton donned a jaunty ivory tuxedo with a cropped jacket and matching beret. Pharrell Williams, another co-host, was demure in a double-breasted, beaded evening jacket and dark trousers. He kept his dark shades on while posing for the cameras. Williams walked with his wife, Helen Lasichanh, in a black bodysuit and matching jacket. Pharrell’s jacket consists of 15,000 pearls and took 400 hours to construct, his representative said. This year, the fundraising gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosted by a group of black male celebrities, including Domingo, Hamilton, Williams, who’s the musical artist and Louis Vuitton menswear director, and A$AP Rocky. LeBron James, the NBA superstar, was named honorary chair but bowed out at the last minute because of a knee injury. As always, hosts are joined by Wintour, the mastermind behind the gala, considered the year’s biggest and starriest party. Also guaranteed to show up was a second tier of hosts from a variety of worlds: 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 Monáe and André 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. This year’s Met Gala dress code is inspired by the annual spring exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, which is based in large part on Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, a book written by Monica Miller. She is guest curator of the exhibit. The guest list amounts to about 450 high-profile people from tech, sports, art, entertainment and more. The mix, Williams said, is a must. “It is 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 US$31 million, Metropolitan Museum of Art chief executive Max Hollein said – the first time the fundraiser for the Met’s Costume Institute has crossed the US$30 million mark and eclipsing last year’s haul of more than US$26 million.

At 2025 Met Gala, a parade of stars in everything from pinstripe gowns to bold check

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Lewis Hamilton chose an ivory beret, co-host Colman Domingo a pleated blue cape as a host of stars joined fashion’s biggest party of 2025

Lewis Hamilton chose an ivory beret, co-host Colman Domingo a pleated blue cape as a host of stars joined fashion’s biggest party of 2025