Photo: Getty Images North America
Teyana Taylor set the bar for "Tailoring Black Style" at the 2025 Met Gala.
On Monday (May 5), Taylor kicked off this year's Met Gala, showing off a jaw-dropping look on the iconic steps of the museum.
The singer-actress-dancer wore a red vest inside a three-piece pinstripe suit, pairing it with a dramatic, padded red cape embellished with the words "Harlem rose" on the train. Taylor also donned red leather gloves, a red cane, a silk head scarf, and a red fedora hat.
“I’m already not a big dress girl,” Taylor told Vogue. “I’m in suits even without it being a suit theme.”
Taylor recruited Oscar-winning costume designer for Black Panther Ruth E. Carter, who she previously worked with on 2021's Coming 2 America, to bring her show-stopping look to life.
“As we embarked on our journey in this country, we were stripped of everything,” Carter said. “A lot of times the only thing you had was to show it on your body.”
A-listers were asked to dress to impress on Monday while embodying Black dandyism, which dates back to 18th-century Europe and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Dandyism was initially a trend imposed on Black men, who ushered in an era of the "fashionably dressed or dandified servants."
"Dandyism offered Black people an opportunity to use clothing, gesture, irony, and wit to transform their given identities and imagine new ways of embodying political and social possibilities," per the Met.
The gala's 2025 dress code, "Tailored for You," called on guests to interpret dandyism through individualized tailoring, precise cuts, lush fabrics, and personal style.
Curator Monica Miller, author of "Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity," offered the inspiration behind this year's theme.
"Black style is really related to thinking about how fashion and power connect," Miller previously said.
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