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When attendees hit the red carpet of this year’s Met Gala, they’ll be dazzling in stunning looks that pay homage to the history, defiance and cultural influence of Black style.
The theme for the 2025 Gala is “Tailored for You”, with the event honoring and exploring the fashion narrative and history of the Black dandy. This theme was reinforced by the gala’s “Tailored for You” dress code — which is inspired by the 18th century dandy. Clothing will focus on menswear and tailored suiting. The focus on Black Dandyism — an aesthetic and cultural tradition rooted in defiance, elegance, and self-definition — allows this year’s gala to be more than a fundraiser. It’s a reclamation for many people. The title for this year’s Costume Institute Spring Exhibit is titled “Superfine: Tailoring for Black Style.”
In an interview with Morning Edition, Ruth E. Carter, who in 2018 became the first Black woman to win an Oscar for costume design says the theme is a powerful tribute to a legacy often overlooked in mainstream fashion circles.
With her acclaimed costume design work on projects like Black Panther, Malcom X, and Amistad, over her career Carter has on numerous occasions crafted looks for film and TV productions that offer varying versions of Black dandy style.
“Black Dandyism is a form of performance, identity, and individuality,” Carter told NPR’s Michel Martin. “It’s how we define ourselves. It’s a cultural declaration—male or female, or any gender. It’s genderless.”
Historically, the figure of the dandy often conjures images of European aristocrats like Beau Brummell or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby character.Black Dandyism serves as a tool for Black Americans to express themselves, allowing them to regain control of their agency and personal narratives.
For Black communities, dressing fine has long been a form of resistance—sartorial activism that threads self-worth, rebellion, and creativity into every seam.
“It’s garments of protest. It’s the garments of freedom,” Carter said.”When you think about the zoot suit riots of the 1940s, you’re looking at Black and Latino men who were attacked just for wearing wide-legged trousers and long chains. That was fashion as resistance. That was an expression of provocation.”
Monica L. Miller, a professor at Barnard College and guest curator for the Met exhibition, wrote the book on how the Black community has used fashion as a vehicle to express themselves — Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Miller traces how enslaved Africans were sometimes forced to dress in luxurious garb by their enslavers, turning them into walking advertisements of their owners’ wealth. But in a profound twist, Black communities later appropriated that very aesthetic, using style as a declaration of agency and self-definition.
Carter sees this moment at the Met as a culmination of those acts of reclamation. “It’s about celebration as much as rebellion,” she said. “It’s a full-circle moment.”
From Ma Rainey’s feathered hats to the structured suits of Duke Ellington and Malcolm X, Carter notes that the Black dandy can be found across generations— and genders. “You can be finely tailored and represent power, identity, and individuality,” she said.
“That same cane and top hat we associate with male dandies were worn by women like Madam C.J. Walker. We’ve always stylized our lives, even when we couldn’t afford to.”
The idea that style is tied to power and identity is woven through Carter’s own work, especially in her latest film Sinners, in which Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers navigating Jim Crow-era Mississippi with Chicago swagger. Their sharp suits, Carter explains, signal more than fashion—they reflect upward mobility, diasporic identity, and a sense of having made it despite the odds.
“They had worked for Al Capone, swindled money and booze, and came back to the Mississippi Delta with power,” Carter explained. “It’s reverse migration. And their look tells that story.”
For Carter, the night is a tribute to the centuries of influence Black communities have had on fashion — often with limited resources but unlimited imagination.
“It’s about how we stylize trends from Harlem to Chicago to Texas,” Carter said. “It’s about how we made a way out of no way.”
And as Black fashion takes center stage at arguably the most prestigious fashion event in the world, Carter sees a powerful convergence between costume design, storytelling, and celebrating the history of Black fashion.
“This Met Gala will be unlike any other,” she says. “It’s our full dimensionality on display.”
The audio version of this story was produced and edited by Destinee Adams and Mohamad ElBardicy. The digital version was edited by Treye Green.
Copyright © 2025 NPR
Transcript:
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Hundreds of designers, actors and other celebrities are gathering in New York to attend the Met Gala tonight. Technically, it’s a fundraiser that raises millions for the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute. But in recent years, it has also become a huge cultural phenomenon – a showcase for people at the leading edge of fashion, Hollywood and even sports to show up and show out. There’s always a theme, and this year’s has generated additional buzz, if that’s even possible. It’s “Superfine: Tailoring For Black Style,” a nod to Black dandyism.
RUTH E CARTER: Dandyism is seen through clothing. It’s seen through the way that we wrap ourselves in elegance and power. And it’s a cultural declaration.
MARTIN: To hear more about what that is and why it matters, we’ve called Ruth E. Carter. She is the first Black woman to win an Oscar for costume design, and she’s styled unforgettable costumes for films like “Malcolm X,” “Black Panther” and “Sinners.” Ruth E. Carter, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
CARTER: Oh, thank you for having me. It’s a – it’s really an honor.
MARTIN: So what’s particularly noteworthy about devoting this Met Gala to Black dandyism? Because I think people associate dandyism with somebody like a Gatsby, like a Beau Brummell, kind of white people from the – European heritage, a lot of wealth. What is it about Black dandyism that puts a twist on that idea?
CARTER: Well, Black – the Black dandy has always used style as resistance. It’s garments of protest. It’s garments of freedom. Even as we emerged out of colonization into emancipation, we defined our self-esteem and our worth by how we presented ourselves. Many times, that was all we had, and that was the only way in which we could express our creativity or our defiance. And that’s why the Black dandy is very important to this gala, because it defines something that’s undescribable in any other context.
MARTIN: You know, the guest curator of this year’s gala is a professor at Barnard, Monica Miller…
CARTER: Yes.
MARTIN: …Who wrote a book about Black dandies. And one of the things that she noted was that one of the origin stories of this was the habit of the wealthy dressing up their enslaved servants in a very luxurious manner as a – sort of a walking billboard for their own wealth. So to then have people kind of convert the roots of that into an expression of their own agency and identity seems particularly sly, and also kind of remarkable. I was thinking about, like, the Zoot Suit Riots, where Black and Latino men who wore these…
CARTER: That’s right.
MARTIN: …Suits were sometimes attacked in the street. There’s just something about certain styles that Black…
CARTER: Yes.
MARTIN: …Men in particular have embraced that just seems to push people’s buttons. And I just wonder why you think that might be.
CARTER: Well, Black dandyism has a place in rebellion, and it also has a place in celebration. It’s not only an act of defiance – it’s also a celebration in self-esteem and self-identification. So when you think of the Zoot Suit Riots, yes, you think of the Black and Latinos in Los Angeles that were wearing the baggy pants and the long chain and the feather in the hat. And it was very unlike what you would see in fashion. But also, fashion followed that style and things started to emerge in the mainstream, just as they do today.
MARTIN: In your work, fashion is not just about clothes. It’s about who a character is – where they come from, where they’re headed. In your latest movie, “Sinners,” you dress Michael B. Jordan’s twin characters, Stack and Smoke, and they are in sharp suits and fitted hats. They’re two Black men. They’re trying to survive – and not just survive but kind of thrive and make their way – in Jim Crow Mississippi. What were you trying to signal through their style, and would you consider them dandies?
CARTER: Oh, I would say that my work in storytelling, working with a script, allows me to delve into, you know, past ideas where – Smoke and Stack came out of Chicago. Then they returned to the Mississippi Delta to open up a juke joint. So their look was kind of like reverse migration. They were – they amassed a certain amount of wealth and power, and they went back to Mississippi, where there were sharecroppers. And so their representation as characters was very much in a dandy style, if we take away kind of the stereotypes or the tropes of dandyism. Like, you don’t have to walk down the middle of the road with a big feather bow…
MARTIN: (Laughter).
CARTER: …In your hat. You can be finely tailored and represent power, individual idea and identity.
MARTIN: You are someone who has shaped so much of how Black stories are seen. What does this moment of centering Black fashion at the Met mean to you?
CARTER: Well, it just highlights – it’s like a microcosm of everything, and it highlights, you know, all of the style that we have been bringing into fashion since the beginning. It’s a celebration of how, Harlem to Chicago to – you know, to Texas – how we all worked on having style when sometimes we couldn’t afford it. When you think of Dapper Dan and all that he was doing in the ’90s, you know, he made a way for dandyism to come into the urban style, street style.
MARTIN: Forgive me. For folks who don’t know, Dapper Dan is – he’s still here. He’s a Harlem designer who’s famous for suiting up hip hop artists like Jay-Z…
CARTER: Yes.
MARTIN: …And LL Cool J in the ’90s. And just – and also, in some cases, kind of retrofitting sort of luxury brands to a different purpose…
CARTER: Yes.
MARTIN: …In a way that gave them a very different look. So you’re going to go?
CARTER: Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m excited about it. I love how costume design and fashion are merging in this Met Gala. It’s storytelling. It’s identity. It’s going to be wonderful.
MARTIN: That is Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter. Ruth Carter, thank you so much for talking with us.
CARTER: Oh, thanks for having me. It’s been great.
(SOUNDBITE OF LL COOL J SONG, “DOIN’ IT”)
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