The Met Gala, unstacked
How Substackers covered fashion’s biggest night
Background
Keyaira Boone: It’s the first Monday in May! That means we will all be getting in touch with our inner Miranda Priestleys.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy: Last night, the Met Gala took over New York City—and your social media timeline—as celebrities, designers, and anybody who could afford the $75,000 ticket descended on the stairs of the Met. Shout-outs to everyone who watched for three hours while wearing sweatpants and eating takeout. We’re the real MVPs…
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: The Met Gala, for the uninitiated (which is, btw, many who are mad at it), is a big bash fundraising for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is not related to the Met opera house, nor to Gala apples.
Bonnie Morrison: [T]here remain many who compare tonight’s festivities to the Oscars thanks to the celeb wattage, though I personally think it’s really more like Fashion’s Super Bowl—particularly if you think of the Super Bowl less as a contest between two sports teams and more as the annual convention of the world’s biggest corporations and upstarts vying for the biggest audience of the year.
The exhibit and theme
Hunter Harris: “They done fucked up and made the Met Ball black,” bellowed Law Roach at a pre-Met party on Saturday night. This year’s Costume Institute spring 2025 exhibition is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” and the gala’s dress code is “Tailored for You.”
Clare: [T]he thesis of the exhibition, per the Met’s website, is: “In the 18th-century Atlantic world, a new culture of consumption, fueled by the slave trade, colonialism, and imperialism, enabled access to clothing and goods that indicated wealth, distinction, and taste. Black dandyism sprung from the intersection of African and European style traditions.”
Bonnie Morrison: I know I don’t need to tell you that we live in a culture whose relationship with even discussing race is so complicated that there is no way that this choice was made lightly, or that it hasn’t gotten everyone involved with the evening—even as guests—preparing to choose their words carefully.
Alexander Mcqunt: According to Vogue, the exhibit will be organized into 12 sections, each representing a characteristic that defines dandy style: Ownership, Presence, Distinction, Disguise, Freedom, Champion, Respectability, Jook, Heritage, Beauty, Cool, and Cosmopolitan—inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s 1934 essay, The Characteristics of Negro Expression.
Amy Odell: The exhibition itself was fascinating—one of the best I remember seeing at the Costume Institute—thanks to the well-curated historical depictions of Black dandies throughout. It included clothes worn by Frederick Douglass and personal effects of W.E.B. Du Bois, like his laundry list, along with contemporary glittery tailoring by Olivier Rousteing for Balmain.
Clare: When you filter this intellectual project through the Met—an earnest celebration of consumption, clothing, and goods that indicate wealth, distinction, and taste—the performative elements that formed Black dandyism and make it historically resistive are deadened a bit, no?
The looks
Boy Beat: Okay, so first off, let me say that I was really excited for this year’s theme, “Superfine Tailoring: Black Style.” I just knew that we were going to get our chance to show out from a great historical context. However, the first Monday in May came, and in the words of [André Leon Talley], “My eyes were starved for beauty.” The children gave me nothing.
Simone Oliver: This year’s tailoring did heavy lifting—whether in Thom Browne’s architectural custom suits (Zoë Saldaña!) or the deconstructed pearls woven through Pharrell’s LV ensemble. Forget the feeds—these were pieces that whispered lineage, not just label.
Chevanne Scordinsky: The Gala could have used a bit more sapeur energy. More color, more shapes instead of props.
Olivia Tauber: Zendaya and her stylist Law Roach also made a…slight fashion error. The Challengers star made her highly anticipated entrance in a custom all-white Louis Vuitton suit and hat styled by Law Roach, channeling a 1970s Bianca Jagger vibe. But only hours later, actress Anna Sawai (of Shōgun) arrived wearing a strikingly similar Dior suit and matching wide-brimmed hat, launching an instant "Who Wore It Better?" frenzy across the internet. All this tells me is there needs to be a Met Gala FB group like we had for high school prom.
The ghost of the gala
Bonnie Morrison: I am thinking of the most famous and recognizable avatar of the “Black Dandy,” André Leon Talley, whom I have already seen many cite as the patron saint of this show.
Amy Odell: The late fashion editor grew up in the Jim Crow South and got his start in the industry working for Diana Vreeland when she was a special consultant for the Costume Institute in the seventies. Monday’s gala opens the Costume Institute’s new exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, which features a number of pieces owned and worn by Talley, including monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks, a Morty Sills suit, and one of his signature caftans.
Stephanie Tinsley: Ever since the Met Gala theme for 2025 was announced, André’s name has been on everyone’s lips, and his likeness posted on everyone’s Instagram. There is no question that he is the quintessential Black American dandy. You cannot talk about Black dandyism without referencing André. I would argue you cannot talk about Vogue magazine or about the Met Gala without mentioning André.
Amy Odell: Anna Wintour recently paid tribute to him in Vogue, writing, “I have thought of André so many times—happy and bittersweet memories mixed together. I thought of how even when he was doing something one might have found slightly over the top—playing tennis in full Vuitton, for instance—it was, for André, an act of supreme confidence, of total self-possession.”
Ayan Artan: [Anna Wintour’s] (mis)treatment of André Leon Talley is well-documented, both in his own autobiography and from the accounts of other insiders who knew them both.
Simone Oliver: Anna Wintour’s own hush of a cloud coat was a nod to André, designed by Virgil (RIP). A whisper between legends.
Welcome to the hunger games! May the odds be ever in your favor. Salute the elites of The Capital, peasants.
Oligarchy at its best.