It’s no secret that Hollywood spares no expense to provide celebrities with the most fabulous red carpets, leading into various award shows. However, celebrity A-listers rarely gather to support a good cause. The Met Gala does precisely that.

The star-studded event brings together celebrities from all walks of life. Watchers get to see movie stars and pro-athletes admiring exhibits, musicians and authors discussing their latest works, and models and fashion icons dressed to the nines, but what is this event all about?

The Met Gala is an annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City that has been taking place since 1948 and has been held on the first Monday in May since 2005. Since the event marks the opening of the newest fashion exhibition, the carpet leading into the museum almost always has a corresponding dress code that encourages guests to rise to the occasion. This year the event raised a record breaking $31 million, which will go directly back to the Costume Institute to support the institute’s mission of preserving and studying fashion, acquiring new pieces, and organizing and showcasing its collections through exhibitions.

This highly anticipated event is one of the most exclusive invitations of the year, with only around 500 guests in attendance, so it is no surprise that it attracts a lot of media attention and sparks numerous conversations about fashion and culture. The 2025 Met Gala was no different, and garnered the same amount of media attention as it has in previous years.

Vogue Magazine explains this year’s exhibition on their website, stating, “the Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.’ Drawing inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, the exhibition is organized into 12 sections, each representing a characteristic that defines dandy style: Ownership, Presence, Distinction, Disguise, Freedom, Champion, Respectability, Jook (defined in Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Characteristics of Negro Expression’—an important reference for the exhibition—as a space for dancing, drinking, and other leisure activities), Heritage, Beauty, Cool, and Cosmopolitanism.“Superfine” will feature garments, paintings, photographs, and more from artists including Torkwase Dyson, Tanda Francis, André Grenard Matswa, and Tyler Mitchell—all exploring the indelible style of Black dandies, from the 18th century through to the present day.”

The 2025 Met Gala dress code was “Tailored for You,” which tied into the exhibit and the focus on menswear. According to the Met, the dress code is “purposefully designed to provide guidance and invite creative interpretation.”

As always, the event was spearheaded by Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, along with the four co-chairs: actor Colman Domingo, musicians Pharrell Williams and A$AP Rocky, and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, while basketball star Lebron James acted as honorary co-chair.

This year, the carpet featured celebrities like:

Award winning actor and 2025 Co-chair, Colman Domingo, showed off a two-part look. The first, a royal blue embellished cloak, and underneath the extravagant garment, Domingo wore a Valentino suit, in various neutral tones. In an on-carpet interview with Access Hollywood, Domingo sheds some light into the inspiration behind his ensemble, stating:

First I started with finding ourselves in history across the seas, I was looking at the Moors, and draping, and the way they fashion themselves with jewelry, the way they defined themselves, and I thought, ‘oh, that’s also like a choir robe as well’…and it’s honoring the black church. Then underneath I wanted to jump to the 1940s, to a zoot suit, and so I’m giving you a zoot suit tonight with classic tailoring, and looking at how we pull ourselves together and define ourselves. And also, the color blue in particular, represents a couple of things. One of the first freed slaves who said ‘I wanted to dance at my freedom day in my finest blue super fine wool’. So, I’m representing many things. So I know when I step onto the carpet like Maya Angelou said, ‘I’m not stepping on by myself. I’m bringing 10,000 of you with me. We all go.’”

Singer-songwriter and actress Coco Jones, arrived at her second Met appearance in an all white coat dress and coordinating pants created for her by Indian designer Manish Malhotra. Jones’ long-sleeved coat, was intricately beaded and embroidered with silver, white, and cream botanicals, with sharp lapels and a sweeping train.

Diana Ross, of The Supremes, returned to the Met Gala for the first time in 22 years, and she did not disappoint. Wearing a crystal-embelished spaghetti-strapped gown underneath a jaw-dropping feathered overcoat, featuring an 18-foot-long train, that took five men to carry behind her. Ross revealed a detail many missed in a carpet-side interview with Vogue, stating “It has (stitched) the names of all my children and my eight grandchildren. It’s a forever family gown.” She was accompanied by her son, and co-creator of the ensemble, Evan Ross, who worked closely with Ugo Mozie, a Nigerian designer, who went to social media stating, “Family. Heritage. Legacy.”

Another look that has left viewers talking is Joey Kings take on the zoot-suit, designed by Miu Miu, the green suit was embellished with small silver mirrors. The look held everyones attention with the way it caught the light and played with different patterns in her shirt and tie!

While the glamorous carpet garners attention annually, that is all the public gets to experience of this event. What happens inside is a mystery, and because of this, guests must follow a no-phone policy. The event usually involves a high-profile performer, this year is was Usher, and guests are welcome to explore the exhibition before sitting down together for dinner.

The Met Gala is considered fashion’s biggest night, and this year’s attendees did not disappoint in terms of their looks, all striving to meet the “tailored to you” dress code. However, there were a few that stood out from the crowd:

Singer-songwriter and actress, Teyana Taylor, left viewers in awe with her Met look. In an interview with Vogue magazine, Taylor said her look is ‘Taylor’d to You’, stating that she’s not a big dress girl, and that regardless of an events theme or dress code she’d choose a tailored look anyday. With the help of two-time Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter to design her outfit, they created a burgundy zoot-suit with feathers, lace, and many crystals, all combining into one look. On the edge of her cape, embroidered in tonal string, are the words “Rose in Harlem”; beneath her feather-adorned hat, a matching durag.

Musician Janelle Monáe is always one to watch on the Met Gala carpet, and this year’s look did not disappoint! Designed by Thom Brown, Monáe attended the carpet as “the time-traveling dandy,” a reference to considering herself as an Afro-Futurist. “We asked ourselves, ‘What would elements of dandyism from the past, present, and future look like?’” Monáe told Vogue.

The ensemble had literal elements of time, such as the monocle that was also a moving clock, and her watch, but also in a metaphorical sense, with the oversized trompe l’oeil cape, that was embroidered with radial outlines to give the illusion of a rectangular portal, and subtle hints to the outfit underneath. When the cape was removed further down the carpet, a look similar to the one embroidered on the cape is revealed, as if she’s stepping out of a time machine. “It feels like you’re getting a glimpse of somebody moving through time.” she states.

Actor Tramell Tilman, also wore custom Thom Browne, taking inspiration from a production of the Tyla Abercrumbie play “Relentless” that he saw in 2022. The play was set in 1919, and in an interview with The New York Times he said he “wanted to lean into the opulence and regality of that era…and honor the lives of these humans that we don’t hear about often.”

According to Thom Browne, who gave insight to the look on instagram, “Tramell wears an elongated tailcoat in black velvet, tipped in black silk satin, and adorned with a bouquet of handcrafted calla lilies attached to the chest with a silk satin ribbon. Classic trousers in black and white pinstripe are worn with a cummerbund in black silk faille, a grey and white university stripe oxford shirt with a round collar and black silk faille bow tie. The shoes are opera ballerina spectators in black and white patent leather.” The look is beautiful in its timelessness, and with the three hundred hours of hand sewing that went into creating the ensemble it wouldn’t be a surprise if we see it in the Costume Institute’s collection in the future.

Actress Jodie Turner-Smith, turned heads with her custom Burberry look. The creation drawing inspiration from a 1891 photograph of Selika Lazevski, a Black equestrian who lived in Belle Époque Paris.

According to Burberry, “The coat’s cinched waist and bustle reference the Victorian silhouette captured in Lazevski’s portrait, switching traditional tailoring fabrics for leather embossed with an ornate floral design.” The maroon ensemble is tied together with a coordinating top hat.

Rapper and musician André 3000, made one of the biggest statements of the night, with this statement piece, while teasing his new album “7 Piano Sketches.”

The piano was created by the design and fabrication company Pink Sparrow, and was a reimagined model of a Steinway Model S Baby Grand piano, the piece weighs only 30 pounds, and was at 75 percent scale of the real thing. It was made out of foam, a thin plywood and various 3-D elements, made complete with straps, keys, and pedals.

Andre 3000 played into the illusion of heft of carrying a baby grand piano around by wearing a workwear-inspired jumpsuit designed by Burberry.

In an interview with The New York Times, Andre 3000 stated “Dandyism is an everyday thing, it’s an attitude when you wake up. We’ve been doing it for years. You know, I’m just happy that there’s a night that puts a spotlight on it. And we’re just here to have fun doing what we do.”

The 2025 Met Gala was a huge success, raising a record breaking $31 million for the Costume Institute, and had no shortage of memorable moments, from the opening performance by a 20-person choir, performing their rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, to Rihanna’s pregnancy announcement. The night was an event for the fashion history books, and fashion enthusiasts will eagerly await the announcement of next year’s theme, and carpet.

If you’re interested in taking a look at this year’s carpet, you can check out Vogue’s website. If you have plans to visit New York from May 10th to October 26, 2025, stop by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition for yourself!