Next Year’s Met Gala Theme Is Historic

While the last Met Gala was all about flowers and ball gowns, next May’s edition will be a suited spectacle. This time, the attention will be placed more so on the men in attendance than ever before. The 2025 Met Gala theme is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” inspired by the sartorial history of the Black dandy, and hosted by some of the most well-dressed men of this generation. Below, all the details you need to know about fashion’s biggest night, from the exhibit that informs it all to the co-chairs who will be leading the parade of looks.

What is the theme of the 2025 Met Gala?

As mentioned above, next year’s exhibit will be titled “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” and the red carpet will, per usual, reflect the themes present within the show. Expect a lot of tailoring, as well as unique takes on traditional suiting. There will also likely be a lot of designs that harken back to Black history, both within and outside of America, calling on eras and styles like traditional African fashion, the suits of the Harlem Renaissance, and more modern works by designers like Virgil Abloh and Pharrell Williams, who is serving as a co-chair for the event.

Louis Vuitton is actually a co-sponsor of the 2025 Met Gala, so Williams will likely be very busy dressing many guests that night. Other designers and houses like Thom Browne, Chanel, and Versace will likely have tables and therefore dress attendees. Otherwise, though, hopefully, guests are inspired by the year’s theme and accompanying exhibit and tap BIPOC designers to dress them for the evening.

When is the 2025 Met Gala?

It’s the first Monday in May, of course, meaning in 2025, the Met Gala will take place on Monday, May 5.

Who is chairing the 2025 Met Gala?

All the co-chairs for the event will be men, specifically men known for their style. The 2025 Met Gala will be chaired by musician and designer Pharrell Williams, actor Colman Domingo, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, musician, our Originals issue cover star A$AP Rocky, and Anna Wintour. Basketball star Lebron James will also join the group as an honorary co-chair.

“They’re all men who aren’t afraid to take risks with their self-presentation,” Head Curator of the Costume Institute Andrew Bolton said of the co-chairs. “They take advantage of classic forms, but they also remix them and break them down in really new ways.”

What will be included in the accompanying exhibit?

“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” will turn its attention to the Black dandy—an archetype that can be traced in America to the 18th century—and explore the intersection of fashion and Black identities. Along with Bolton, the show will be guest curated by Monica Miller, professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.

Miller has described Black dandyism as “a strategy and a tool to rethink identity, to reimagine the self in a different context. To really push a boundary—especially during the time of enslavement, to really push a boundary on who and what counts as human, even.” Through clothing, photography, paintings, drawings, and film excerpts, the show will illustrate the journey Black people have taken in this country, from an enslaved group to global trendsetters.

Since 2020, following the Black Lives Matter movement, the Costume Institute has been working to fill a hole in its archive, and has acquired about 150 pieces from BIPOC designers. Many of those will likely be on display within the exhibit, which will be organized into 12 characteristics of Black dandyism, informed by a 1934 Zora Neale Hurston essay, “The Characteristics of Negro Expression.” The will open on May 10 and run until October 26, 2025.

What is the dress code for the 2025 Met Gala?

If you’ve been a fan of fashion’s biggest night for a while now, you know that there is often a bit of discrepancy between the theme and actual dress code. For example, in 2024, the theme was “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” but the dress code was, “The Garden of Time,” causing many attendees to wear ensembles that represented the decay of beauty, as inspired by J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story of the same name.

Usually, the dress code isn’t announced until much closer to the actual event. So we will likely have to wait a bit until we get more specifics on what the guests are expected to embody with their ensembles next year.