For fashion lovers, the first Monday in May is a big deal. The first Monday in May marks the Met Gala, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual fashion gala benefiting the museum’s Costume Institute. High-profile celebrities, designers, and socialites alike, flock to the steps of The Met like “Gossip Girl’s” Serena and Blair, in outfits that correlate, or do not correlate with the gala’s yearly theme. Some notable past themes include “Sleeping Beauty: Reawakening Fashion,” “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” and “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” to name a few.Â
On Oct. 9, however, the 2025 Met Gala theme, chosen by Andrew Bolton, chief curator of the Costume Institute, was announced as “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” and will be co-chaired by ASAP Rocky, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour, with LeBron James as a honorary chair. The theme, inspired by Monica Miller’s book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” will center on Black dandyism, or as Miller said in Vogue,“a strategy and a tool to rethink identity, to reimagine the self in a different context.” The theme also marks the first time the Costume Institute will host an exhibition on only designers of color, and on men’s wear, according to The New York Times.Â
Considering the fashion industry has had a long and troubled history of being exclusionary towards people of color–less than 8 percent of fashion designers in the United States are Black, compared to over 60 percent of white designers–this upcoming Met Gala signifies how fashion can be used as a tool for change.
Fashion has always been about more than just making statements. Historically, fashion has been used by social movements to convey a greater message. The Black Panther Party wore black berets as a part of their uniform in the ’60s to symbolize revolution and resistance during the civil rights movement. Throughout the suffragette movement, women wore colors such as white to represent purity and femininity, as well as purple and green to represent loyalty and dignity. It will not be surprising if designers and celebrities invited to the gala make similar statements with their outfits.
The Met Gala is always a controversial event, but perhaps this upcoming gala will be an opportunity for the fashion world to explore diverse perspectives, and shine a spotlight on more than just the A-list celebrities walking the red carpet. Â