Let the year's biggest fashion party begin!
It's the first Met Gala to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years to have a menswear theme. This year's theme is based on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's spring exhibit, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.
Emma Chamberlain and Zuri Hall were among those who wore sleek, sexy gowns that play on men's suiting in pinstripes and other details.
Teyana Taylor went for a stunning Zoot Suit look with a red, feather-adorned top hat and a huge matching cape dripping with flowers and bling.
The Zoot was popularised in Harlem in the 1940s.
Colman Domingo, one of the evening's hosts, wore a pleated, gold-adorned cape over a grey and black suit, his jacket a pearled windowpane design with a huge dotted black flower. His look, including his cape and a dotted black scarf around his neck, evoked the late André Leon Talley, the fashion icon who made history as a rare Black editor at Vogue.
Domingo arrived with Vogue's Anna Wintour, dressed in a baby blue coat over a shimmery white gown. Fellow co-chair Lewis Hamilton donned a jaunty ivory tuxedo with a cropped jacket and matching beret.
Pharrell Williams, another co-host, was demure in a double-breasted, beaded evening jacket and dark trousers.
He kept his dark shades on while posing for the cameras. Williams walked with his wife, Helen Lasichanh, in a black bodysuit and matching jacket.
Pharrell's jacket consists of 15,000 pearls and took 400 hours to construct, his representative said.
Monica L. Miller, whose book inspired the evening, wore a bejewelled cropped cape over a dress adorned with cowrie shells by Grace Wales Bonner. It's a direct connection to a piece in the gala's companion Metropolitan Museum of Art spring exhibit that Miller guest curated.
This year, the fundraising gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosted by a group of Black male celebrities, including Domingo, Hamilton, Williams, who's the musical artist and Louis Vuitton menswear director, and A$AP Rocky. LeBron James, the NBA superstar, was named honorary chair but bowed out at the last minute due to a knee injury.
Also guaranteed to show up is a second tier of hosts from a variety of worlds: athletes Simone Biles and husband Jonathan Owens; Angel Reese and Sha'Carri Richardson; filmmakers Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee and Regina King; actors Ayo Edebiri, Audra McDonald and Jeremy Pope; musicians Doechii, Usher, Tyla, Janelle Monáe and André 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's Costume Institute. With AAP.
