Met Gala 2025's theme demands nuance, but will celebrities rise to the occasion?

The theme for the 2025 Met Gala , Tailored for You, sounds deceptively straightforward, until seen with the Costume Institute’s accompanying exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. Then, the complexity of the evening begins to unfold. As the annual fundraising extravaganza for The Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Met Gala has long served as both launch party and opening night for the museum's fashion exhibition. It is a high-stakes fashion showdown where celebrity guests attempt to outdo one another on the red carpet, and where tables cost a small fortune. Over the years, the event has delivered headline-grabbing looks such as Tyla in a sand-sculpted gown (2024), Jared Leto dressed as Karl Lagerfeld’s cat (2023), and Kim Kardashian squeezing into Marilyn Monroe’s 1962 gown (2022). Some have elevated the Met Gala to an art form. Zendaya in 2024 pulled off not one, but two show-stopping looks – a custom Maison Margiela followed by vintage Givenchy. Rihanna, despite arriving over an hour late in 2023, still topped every best-dressed list . Since its inception in 1948, the Met Gala has evolved into a dazzling and often over-the-top fashion spectacle, a themed playground open to interpretation. But this year, things are different. The Superfine: Tailoring Black Style exhibition is inspired by Monica L Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity . It is a long-overdue examination of black fashion’s monumental influence on American style, from the street to the runway, and how that legacy has been persistently downplayed. That the Met is tackling such a complex and historically fraught topic is admirable. Founded in 1870 and traditionally sustained by white benefactors, this is the museum’s first exhibition centred on black designers, a shocking fact that underscores how long recognition has been withheld. The exhibition does not shy away from difficult truths, from the legacy of slavery to segregation, which was only outlawed in the US in 1964, and how institutions have long benefited from black culture without giving credit. In an effort to rectify these past omissions, the Met has appointed a refreshingly diverse leadership for the event on May 5. Co-chairs are Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton , polymath Pharrell Williams , rapper A$AP Rocky , actor-playwright Colman Domingo, alongside Vogue chief Anna Wintour . Basketball legend LeBron James serves as honorary chair. Author Miller is co-curating the exhibition with Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator-in-charge. The exhibition celebrates a spectrum of black creativity, from Ib Kamara, editor-in-chief of Dazed and creative director at Off-White, to Tyler Mitchell, the trailblazing photographer handpicked by Beyonce for her Vogue cover. It traces the lineage of black style from 18th-century dandies and zoot suits to contemporary silhouettes, aiming to reclaim and properly credit the cultural innovations that have shaped fashion history. However, the real tension on the night may not be in the exhibition – but on the red carpet. Previous Met Gala themes have been misinterpreted in ways ranging from the absurd to the tone-deaf. Doja Cat turned heads in a wet T-shirt, and Katy Perry once arrived dressed as a crystal chandelier, before changing into a giant hamburger costume. in 2021, Frank Ocean brought along a green robot baby, Kim Petra wore a dress featuring a 3D horse's head, and Grimes carried a sword. In 2017, Helen Lasichanh, who is married to Pharrell Williams, wore a red Comme des Garçons suit with no discernible arm holes. This year’s theme demands nuance, sensitivity and genuine understanding, not surface-level styling or empty spectacle. It asks participants to reflect on centuries of systemic injustice, colonialism and cultural appropriation, all while trying to avoid turning that reflection into a red carpet misstep. A vast network of black stylists, designers and cultural experts are available to guide those unsure of how to proceed. Whether anyone listens is another matter entirely. There is, of course, the lingering fear – or perhaps, quiet anticipation – that someone will get it catastrophically wrong. A mishap here is not just a fashion faux pas; it risks being seen as a public act of ignorance. Or worse, mockery. History is filled with examples of people who thought humour could mask racism, from Ted Danson’s infamous 1993 choice of blackface to roast his then partner Whoopi Goldberg, to Britain's Prince Charles (now the king) wearing a “Rasta” hat with faux locs in Jamaica in 2000. These were not centuries ago, but happened within living memory. And if history has taught us anything, it is that the Met Gala with its international spotlight is an ideal platform for people to either rise to the occasion or spectacularly trip over it. Will 2025 be the year the red carpet becomes a minefield of career-ending mistakes? Possibly. And if so, perhaps that reckoning is long overdue. After all, there’s something oddly satisfying about watching latent bigotry unravel in the face of hard truths. Let’s hope, at the very least, that humility is the real dress code this year. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.