One of Hollywood’s biggest nights of fashion and fame is tonight. The 2025 Met Gala arrives with a theme rooted in menswear and Black style with Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Colman Domingo are serving as this year’s co-chairs alongside Anna Wintour, per Vanity Fair.
The red carpet will be filled with fashion and stars, but context matters. Here is everything you need to know so you can make educated decisions when it comes to rating the bold, custom attire.
What is the 2025 Met Gala theme?
This year’s Met Gala dress code is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” Each guest — and their designer — is tasked with interpreting the theme through their own creative lens.
The event is curated off inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” according to NPR. The book explores Black identity and resistance through the expression of menswear.
It’s “purposefully designed to provide guidance and invite creative interpretation,” as Vogue explained.
In 2012, Miller told NPR that the origins of Black dandyism trace back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when wealthy slave owners dressed enslaved men in fine clothing to display their wealth and status.
She continued to describe it as a period when Black men ”flipped the script on that particular mode of degradation."
As Popsugar explained, Black dandyism as something far bigger than an aesthetic, writing, “ It’s a cultural movement, a source of pride, and a method of resistance to the rigid pressures that society put on our community.”
For a Black man to appear polished and dressed deliberately well, was an act of resistance against systemic racism and the stereotypes that were meant to define him.
This year’s Met Gala is bound to be a moment in history and is the first Met Gala in more than two decades to focus the theme on menswear, according to BBC.
History of the Met Gala
The Met Gala, organized by Anna Wintour since 1995, per Vogue, is held each year on the first Monday in May.
The event celebrates the museum’s spring exhibition. It may be one of the most exclusive and glamorous nights in fashion and Hollywood combined, but at its core, it’s a fundraiser.
The annual event benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. While securing a spot on the exclusive guest list is no small feat, there is still a hefty price to secure your ticket and status.
Last year, a single entry ticket reportedly cost $75,000, according to the BBC.
Wondering what happens at the Met Gala after guests walk the infamous red carpet? No one really knows. Except those in attendance.
The event enforces a strict no-phone, no social-media policy. Though, in 2017 several celebrities broke the rule, posting bathroom selfies, according to Vogue.
The luxurious night will begin at 5:30 p.m. ET and can be livestreamed on Vogue’s website at 6 p.m. ET and on YouTube.
This year, Teyana Taylor, La La Anthony and Ego Nwodim will host the evening’s proceedings. Emma Chamberlain will return as Vogue’s “special correspondent,” ready to greet and interview guests as they arrive, per the Vogue.