PERSONAL SHOPPER
2025 Met Gala Theme Importance
Your Personal Shopper:
Q. What is the Met Gala?
A. Some would describe it as the real life Hunger Games. A rather out of touch event that highlights the capitalism of the world, but it's like Christmas day for fashion fanatics. However, essentially it's a charity event and fundraiser for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Marking the opening of the annual fashion exhibition that runs from Autumn to Spring. In 2024 the gala raised around $26 million.
Q.What's the theme this year?
A. This year, I particularly love the theme. It has been named Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. Exploring dandyism, which is the term used to describe ‘a literary and artistic style, marked by artificiality and excessive refinement’ according to the Merriam Webster dictionary. However, artist Aubrey Beardsley describes it as “the things you say, the places where you are seen and the company you keep. To be a dandy is to recreate and reimagine your own identity”, so I would take it as being rather suave and dressing to the nines.
Q. Is the gala just the celebrities on the red carpet or is there more to it?
A. The exhibit shows the evolution of Black style from the 18th century to the present, taking inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Organising the exhibit into 12 sections, each shall be representing a characteristic that the book uses to define what dandy style is and what it stands for:
Ownership
Presence
Distinction
Disguise
Freedom
Champion
Respectability
Jook (referring to a space for dancing, drinking, and other leisurely activities)
Heritage
Beauty
Cool
Cosmopolitanism.
Q. Why is this year different from the past Met Galas?
A. Well, previously Black culture has been present at the Met Gala, but this year’s theme puts Blackness at the center of the exhibition and dress code. And, though a rarity for the Met gala, Monica L. Miller, a Black cultural critic, is co-curating the exhibit. The dress code which beyond the overall theme is called “Tailored for you” to try to stop guests accidently culturally appropriating. You’d hope they wouldn’t do this anyway but then again celebrities did wear kimonos for China: Through The Looking Glass theme, when they are traditionally Japanese. However this asks guests to interpret Black menswear traditions more personally, giving a specific challenge rather than broader dress code like “gilded glamour” or “camp.”
Q. Is it run by Anna Wintour, the lady is the specs?
A. Yes, Anna Wintour is an important part of putting on the Met Gala, however there is a set of co chairs that help promote and host the event. And this is the first year that all the co chairs are Black men and they are a strong set of male fashion icons. We have Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Wintour, with LeBron James serving as honorary co-chair. As a board they have spoken out about how they feel this is a step in the right direction for the gala, knowing that in Met Gala history, themes can often miss the mark and this would be an unfortunate theme to get it wrong. Lewis Hamilton and his stylist, Eric McNeal have already said that they “hope everyone else attending is compelled to really research and think deeply about what they’re wearing.” One of the lead museum curators, Andrew Bolton has also come out and said that this year's theme is in the “efforts to rectify its own historic failures in diversity and inclusion”, highlighting the already known fact that fashion and art often doesn’t credit artist of colour or black history and culture for its colourful influence.
Lets see how this gala goes, look out for our review coming soon.
A ‘shopping list’ of Black designers you should check out:
Tolu Coker
Christopher John Rogers
Bianca Saunders
Duro Olowu
Victor Glemaud
Eastwood Danso