The Bests, Worsts, Mosts, and Leasts of the 2025 Met Gala

"We're just wearin' clothes, and shit."

Anna REALLY loved that choir — and correctly so. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

The Met Gala began on a rainy day with 98 percent humidity, which seemed like the worst possible start for fashion’s most anticipated night. But things shot up drastically from there: “Tailored For You,” a dress code pinned to the museum’s exhibit “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” yielded a madly dapper tribute to Dandyism full of sharp tailoring and pin stripes, fancy lids, and canes, and capes. Sure, we got a pubic bone, a dash of sheers, some lace nonsense. It IS a celebrity crowd, after all. And while we definitely held our breath for fear of some appropriative nonsense, from what we can tell, nobody transgressed. The entire red carpet from top (hat) to tail (coat) pulsed with excited energy, the interviews were lively, the inspirations thoughtful and touching. This exhibit comes at a time when certain forces seek to erase both the history and influence of Black culture; what a delight to celebrate the scope of its craftsmanship, beauty, and joy, and how much the world owes to it.

Biggest Improvement: Vogue invited Emma Chamberlain and La La Anthony back to help host the livestream, and they continued to be fine! (Well, we didn’t technically see any of Emma’s work because we think she was on TikTok duty, but she was in charismatic form when she popped up for her own interview and we assume we would have heard if she’d gone off the rails.) Teyana Taylor and Ego Nwodim handled the other interview slot, and they were delightful. They managed to balance what others before them haven’t very well: knowing several of their interview subjects, being fans of several of their interview subjects, and having thoughtful questions prepared for their interview subjects. For example, Ego asked Doechii how fashion has helped her “upend people’s expectations for what a rapper should look like,” which is way more than poor old Derek Blasberg could muster. It was a pleasure to hang out with them.

Best Makeover: Last year’s Met Gala carpet looked like it had been left out in the rain and begun to mildew. Anna Wintour and designer Cy Gavin went in a completely different direction this time with a midnight blue option dotted with narcissus flowers. The flowers are meant to symbolize self-reflection, as Gavin told Vogue: “It’s very easy to not see yourself clearly because of all the selves that other people tell us we are.” Of course, he then added, “I was struck by the poignancy of that being also a sort of punishment,” and the narcissus bloom IS tied to the myth of Narcissus falling in love with himself, so… you could read that as empowering, or a statement on the Met Gala being a parade of narcissists. Either way, it looked nice and not at ALL as if it smelled like someone’s basement after a flood, so win-win.

Most Relatable: Teyana Taylor may have been having fun but she also noted that she couldn’t wrangle her cape and hold her mic at the same time, and started (congenially) complaining about her shoes about 90 minutes into the event. Few of us, likely, have had to deal with a cape/microphone conflict, but probably everyone can relate to feeling like your feet are about to fall off after an hour in formal shoes. Note: She did not complain about them to Marc Jacobs, the man who made them. Hopefully he also brought her some flats once everyone got inside.

Most Relatable, Part 2: A$AP Rocky told Teyana and Ego that his grandma is “in love with Colman Domingo” and wants to “steal him from his husband.” With all due respect to Colman Domingo’s marriage (and our own): WHO DOESN’T. She’d better have gotten that Facetime call he was plotting.

Biggest Surprise: Zendaya and Anna Sawai showed up wearing basically the same thing: an impeccably tailored white suit, complete with white tie and wide-brimmed white hat. Zendaya was in custom Louis Vuitton (by Pharrell) and styled by Law Roach, who posted that he was inspired by Bianca Jagger; Anna’s stylist Karla Welch had Dior make her something custom, and jokingly posted during the party that she was inspired by Zendaya. It’s clearly just a case of parallel thinking -- which happens to creative people more than you’d think -- but everyone involved had to have been shocked by the coincidence. On the bright side, both of them did look great, and hopefully got a photo together inside.

Biggest Red (Technically Blue) Carpet Mystery: At one point, all the photogs on the Vogue livestream were screaming for “MERYL.” As you can imagine, we obviously assumed this meant that MERYL STREEP decided to attend this Met Gala. This would be a huge surprise, as she’s never been, but this does seem like a good one to start off with -- and maybe Martin Short wanted to go? Well, no. Meryl was not on the red carpet and did not attend. Which leads us to wonder: Who did everyone think was Meryl Streep?! Our current theory is sort of nuts, but Madonna was on the red carpet at the same time and they are the same age, and currently have the same hair color (and Madge was wearing a fairly modest suit). Were there three crazy minutes when the photography scrum couldn’t really see what was happening and got MADONNA confused with MERYL STREEP?!? And to whom is this more of a compliment?

Second Biggest Mystery: It’s always fun to watch the live feed of everyone leaving the Mark Hotel to head to the gala, and eavesdrop on the photographers. (Sensing a theme? We are nosy.) Last night, we overheard someone tell someone else to put their phone in rice (!) and then the words, “I’m gonna get fired.” Piper, nooooo! Can someone please let us know if their phone is okay and/or if they got fired?!

Third Biggest Mystery: One of the sponsors for the Vogue livestream was 1800 Tequila, meaning we were repeatedly treated to an ad in which Janelle Monae talks about taste, and pushing the limits — before revealing triumphantly that 1800 has made “the first diamond out of tequila.”¹ And they did that… why? Just because they could? Is it a Break Glass In Case of Emergency situation, except instead of glass, you chomp down on your pinky ring to get a shot of booze in your system while you’re waiting in the valet line? Pushing the limits of taste indeed.

Loveliest Interview: Honestly, many of last night’s interviews were wonderful. But we were especially pleased to see La La Anthony chatting with Monica Miller, the Barnard professor whose book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity inspired the exhibit, and who has spent the better part of a year consulting on it with the Met as co-curator with Andrew Bolton. La La talked about how they’d conferred extensively ahead of time about how “Black style can hold both pain and joy,” and Miller responded that the advisory committee insisted upon shining a light on both: “The rhythm and the blues is how Black people experience culture and history, so it felt really necessary for us to be true to that. In the exhibition we really do have blues moments, but those blues moments are necessary to get to the rhythm. It’s also a bit of a ‘Saturday night and Sunday morning’ situation. We’re celebrating Saturday night and in a reverent place Sunday morning.” She then joked, “I’ve never had such a big classroom.” We loved her; what lucky students.

Worst Makeup: So many people. Miley, Lorde, Rosalia… celeb after celeb came out with what we’re calling Deadface, a waxen sheen with no lip color that looked faintly clammy and green under the lights. (If not Dead, then certainly Nauseated.) We know a hot red lip is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine, but it felt like no one other than Cole Escola even opened a palette. Are we all supposed to look as if we’re suffering from a Malaise all summer? Ugh.

Best Concert: It’s a tie, which is convenient, because there were only two. Jon Batiste had his sax with him and casually tootled on it while waiting in line and once out on the red carpet. But we also loved the de facto show-open, the Black men’s a cappella choir Silk and Sound performing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” on the Met steps right as the Vogue livestream began. What a way to kick it off.

Worst Non-Concert: Andre 3000 came with a piano strapped to his back and DIDN’T find a way to play it?!? RUDE. He was actually using it to promote his forthcoming album, 7 piano sketches, whose cover art is a drawing of his Met outfit and which he referred to on Instagram as the worst rap album in history because it has no lyrics. But we STILL think it should’ve secretly been a playable squeezebox, or a literal mouth organ he blew into with a straw. Let’s REALLY innovate, people.

Worst Prep: Blackpink’s Jennie Kim deserved a better briefing from either Chanel or her styling team, because when asked about the inspiration and meaning behind her outfit, all she’d been given to say was a pat line about how important it is to represent Coco Chanel’s legacy. And yes, Coco designed many things… but was also A NAZI, and maybe that isn’t the legacy to celebrate on this particular eve? Don’t sent your client out without a better backstory, folks.

Best Trend: We’re a sucker for stripes of all kinds, so we delighted in the many uses of a pinstripe or similar motif. We’re also never going to say no to a high-fashion cane, or a dramatic lid, all of which were in fine form last night in the service of celebrating the Dandy. We confess that we also appreciated how much effort designers put into expertly manipulating actual, real, tangible fabrics. The Met is often the sheerest of them all, but this one was deliciously, chicly opaque.

Worst Trend: HOWEVER! We did see more than a handful of people going intentionally pantsless. We will feel terrible if this turns out to have a reference of which we’re ignorant, but so far all we’ve seen on this topic is that Pharrell told Sabrina Carpenter that she wouldn’t be wearing pants because she is short. Is that… a rule now? No white after Labor Day and no pants if you’re petite? Tell that to Talbots, sir!

Biggest Bummer: Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow seems to fancy himself a fashion boi, given all the ensembles he wears into the stadium on gamedays. And yet, on his night to shine for real, he showed up in a… perfectly cromulent grey suit, nothing special, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We hope he drank in the athletes and entertainers around him who really stepped it up, and took copious notes for next year. We expected more from you, Joe!

Best Subhead For This Post: Thank you, Mary J. Blige, for giving us, “We’re just wearin’ clothes, and shit.” True at the Met, and in life. Perhaps this should go on a t-shirt.

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Last Call:

— If you’re interested in a deep dive on what EVERYONE wore last night, we’re going to be getting into it at length on Go Fug Yourself, so please come on by.

— Robin Givhan’s take on this Met exhibit is, as always, well-worth your time.

— This particular Met Gala has raised a record-breaking $31 million for the museum. The New York Times looks at how much it costs to mount, and the good news is that the museum is still clearing a ton of money; about $4 for every $1 spent, they estimate. Anna is really good at this part of her job.

1. She ended up wearing it on the red carpet.