NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Pharrell Williams has high hopes for the Met Gala, the first to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years to have a menswear theme.
鈥淚 want it to feel like the most epic night of power, a reflection of in a world that continues to be colonized, by which I mean policies and legislation that are nothing short of that,鈥 he recently told Vogue.
鈥淚t's our turn.鈥
Indeed. And
How to watch the 2025 Met Gala
Vogue will livestream the gala starting at 6 p.m. Eastern on , its and across its other digital platforms. Teyana Taylor, La La Anthony and Ego Nwodim will host the stream. Emma Chamberlain will also do interviews on the carpet.
The Associated Press will livestream celebrity departures from the Mark Hotel beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern and will stream the gala carpet on delay beginning at 6:30 p.m. The feeds will be available on and .
E! will begin live coverage at 6 p.m. on TV. The livestream will be available on Peacock, E! Online and YouTube, along with the network's other social media feeds.
Who鈥檚 hosting the 2025 Met Gala?
This year, the fundraising gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosted including Williams, the musical artist and Louis Vuitton menswear director, and Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, and with as honorary chair. They're joined by Vogue's Anna Wintour, the mastermind behind the gala, considered the year's biggest and starriest party.
Also guaranteed to show up is a second tier of hosts from a variety of worlds: Simone Biles and husband Jonathan Owens; Angel Reese and Sha鈥機arri Richardson; filmmakers Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee and Regina King; actors Ayo Edebiri, Audra McDonald and Jeremy Pope; musicians Doechii, Usher, Tyla, Janelle Mon谩e and Andr茅 3000; author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; artists Jordan Casteel, Rashid Johnson and Kara Walker; playwrights Jeremy O. Harris and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; and fashion figures Grace Wales Bonner, Edward Enninful, Dapper Dan and Olivier Rousteing.
The gala raises the bulk of the curation budget for the museum鈥檚 Costume Institute.
This year's Met Gala dress code is...
It's more like a firm suggestion. From Wintour. This year, it's about tailoring and suiting as interpreted through the history and meaning of Black dandyism across the Atlantic diaspora. The which this year is based in large part on 鈥淪laves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,鈥 a book written by Monica L. Miller. She is guest curator of the exhibit.
鈥淗istorical manifestations of dandyism range from absolute precision in dress and tailoring to flamboyance and fabulousness in dress and style,鈥 Miller writes in the exhibit catalog. 鈥淲hether a dandy is subtle or spectacular, we recognize and respect the deliberateness of the dress, the self-conscious display, the reach for tailored perfection, and the sometimes subversive self-expression.鈥
How the dress code goes, in terms of taste and style, is anyone's guess. Wintour has a hand in virtually all things gala, so the presumption is things can't go too far off the rails. She recently knocked down the rumor that she approves all looks, telling 鈥淕ood Morning America鈥 she'll weigh in if asked.
The exhibit, 鈥淪uperfine: Tailoring Black Style,鈥 draws on other sources beyond Miller's book. It's organized into 12 sections. Each as defined by Zora Neale Hurston in her 1934 essay, 鈥淐haracteristics of Negro Expression.鈥
Among them: ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, respectability and heritage. Presumably, for gala guests who do deep-dive research (or have stylists to do it), some of these factors will play out on the museum steps that serve as the event's red carpet.
Who else is going to show up?
The guest list amounts to about 450 high-profile people from tech, sports, art, entertainment and more. The mix, Williams said, is a must.
鈥淚t鈥檚 so important to me to have successful Black and brown people of every stripe in the room: not just athletes and actors and actresses, entertainers, but also authors, architects, folks from the fintech world," he told Vogue. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to invest in each other. We鈥檝e got to connect with each other, because it鈥檚 going to take everybody to coalesce the force of Black and brown genius into one strong, reliable force.鈥
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