Met Exhibition 2025: Every year on the first Monday of May, the Met Gala takes the fashion world by a storm. This year’s theme “Supering: Tailoring Black Style” has menswear and fashion by the grip of its hand as public figures celebrate and explore the nuances of Black masculinity. The annual exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute takes this challenge and prepares display around the theme.
The Met Exhibition 2025 opens on May 10. Inspired the demise of Vogue’s fashion editor, André Leon Talley in January 2022, this year’s theme honours his personality and feat in the industry. Becoming the first black creative director for Vogue, Tally was the true manifestation of Black Dandyism, a theme based on personalised fashion.
What is Met Exhibition this year?
Inspired by Monica L Miller’s PhD-turned-book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity”, she serves as the guest curator of this year’s display. Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the Costume Institute defined the theme as “an anesthetic and a political phenomenon” referring to Black Dandyism as per the Gaurdian.
What does the Met Exhibition feature?
The show of the Met Exhibition 2025 features more than 200 items including clothing as well as accessories, paintings, photographs and other ephemera. Divided into 12 thematic sections they are: Respectability, Disguise, Cool, Beauty, and Heritage among others. Dating back to 1840, there are uniforms of a slave made in purple velvet.
There are other historical items from designers of color featuring Grace Wales Bonner, Olivier Rousteing of Balmain, and Pharrell Williams of Louis Vuitton. The Met Exhibition 2025 also honours late Virgil Abloh, the sponsor-brand, Louis Vuitton’s designer who passed away in 2021.
A quick lesson in fashion history
This year’s Met Exhibition is a fashion history lesson, an appreciation and a critique all in one. Celebrating black designers who came before and giving a pedestal to the contemporary ones, it also explores the crossroad between dandies and fluid sexuality.
“I think our entire audience will see a complex, fascinating, powerful story and history of Black sartorial style and of the idea of the dandy and how that had this almost projection throughout history,” said Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum’s CEO and director. “You will learn about Black history, you will learn about the ways that history has unfolded.” as per the Gaurdian.