The party of the year had the potential to be a political firecracker. New York’s ultimate see-and-be-seen event, the Met Gala, was also the launch of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, a fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum honouring the subversive power of black style and the role of dandyism in expanding ideals of masculinity. In other words, the A-list were showing up to raise a toast to diversity under the watchful eye of an administration bent on reversing it.
On the night, the resistance came to party, not to protest. Glamour was the guest of honour, with politics very much the plus-one. The tempered tone of the night was typified by Kamala Harris, the most high-profile political guest, slipping in a side entrance to avoid the photographers. The night was a joyful and thoughtful celebration of black heritage and creativity, but it was not a forthright statement about politics in 2025.
Diana Ross wore a feathered ivory gown with the names of all her children and grandchildren embroidered on to an 18ft train, which took up most of the museum steps. Andre 3000 wore a grand piano on his back. Rihanna announced her third pregnancy in pinstripe bump and matching bustle. Hailey Bieber accessorised her Saint Laurent tuxedo with a martini, and no trousers. But the night did not reach the controversial heights of Kim Kardashian in Marilyn Monroe’s dress, or Rihanna as the pope – let alone the boldness of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2021 “Tax The Rich” dress.
Homages to André Leon Talley, Josephine Baker and Dapper Dan were recurring themes. It was the death two years ago of Talley, fashion editor of American Vogue and iconic black dandy, which first sparked the idea for this exhibition in curator Andrew Bolton. Talley “radiated joy”, Anna Wintour wrote in a recent tribute. Talley’s fingerprints were all over the red carpet, in Colman Domingo’s electric blue cape, a nod to Talley’s 2011 Met Gala look, and in singer Doechii staging a pre-gala photo op swinging one of his trademark accessories, a Louis Vuitton tennis racket cover.
The fashion headline of the night was a revival of the sophisticated glamour of 1920s and 1930s Harlem. Singer FKA twigs wore a scalloped and feather trimmed Baker-esque cocktail dress with a chiffon stole, made for her by the black British designer Grace Wales Bonner. Zendaya wore an immaculate three-piece ivory “zoot suit”, the ultra-fitted silhouette popular in Harlem dancehalls in that era, which recalled the flamboyant tailoring of queer blues singer Gladys Bentley.
