The Met Gala 2025: The most political fashion event of the year

It has been dubbed fashion’s most glamorous evening of the year; the gala opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s annual exhibition. Held on the first Monday of May, the Met Gala is a glitzy spectacle that brings together stars, style visionaries, and cultural tastemakers to support the museum’s Costume Institute. This year, the theme is about Black Style, and how African Americans have impacted the world through style and fashion.

With the massive media coverage draws it could not have come at a better time. While books mentioning slavery and the civil rights movement, and anything referring to ethnic and gender diversity are removed from shelves in schools and libraries around the US, the Met gala as well as the exhibition will draw the world’s attention to the resilience and creativity of Black individuals and how they have, through fashion, carved out spaces of pride and resistance in the face of adversity.

The theme: “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style “, is based on Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity”. Miller also serves as a guest curator for the show, together with the institute’s curator in charge Andrew Bolton, to show the importance of style to the formation of Black identities. It shows the transformation from being enslaved and displayed as luxury items in outdated baroque outfits to self-styled individuals who have become global trendsetters.

“Fashion and dress have been used in a contest of power and esthetics by Black people from the time of enslavement to today. And dandyism has often been used to manipulate the relationship between clothing, identity, and power, says Monica L. Miller.

In a world where Afro American creatives and stylists have taken on leading roles in European fashion houses, the late Virgil Abloh as well as Pharell Williams are prime examples, it is hard to imagine a fashion world without their participation. Their bold interpretation of style resonates with anyone who likes to see fashion as revolt, even when it is just decorating a hoodie with the print of a classic painting – the sort of cheeky pop-art that makes heads of European fashion houses gasp for air.

Even pioneer Dapper Dan, famous for his early knockoffs where he printed luxury-logos on his own designs, is so punk, he deserves his icon status, though Fendi might still disagree. Like Dan says in this video made by VOGUE Magazine:

“I felt it was a Robin Hood-thing. Coz I was robbin’ and bringing it to the hood”.

He was sued by Fendi but later started collabs with Gucci, which is only fair as the fashion industry is well known for picking up ideas from street styles, rarely with any attribution at all.

The exhibition features garments, paintings, photographs, and objects owned by dandies and artists including Torkwase Dyson, Tanda Francis, André Grenard Matswa, and Tyler Mitchell, as well unknown and present-day trendsetters, dandies who have challenged the ideas of both race and gender.

The disco-queen Sylvester’s sequined jacket, for instance, is a prime example. It was designed by Pat Campano, who also dressed the Supremes, and could just as easily have been worn by flamboyant icons like Little Richard, Prince, or today’s Billy Porter.

Anyone who can’t visit the museum but still want to know more, should read Monica Miller’s book “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” which traces the complex and vibrant legacy of menswear across three centuries of Black culture: from today’s hip-hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement as a symbol of creative and political agency, and its surprising origins as an imposed uniform for servants and enslaved people. It will change any idea you might have had of fashion and dress as superficial.