Marie Claire editors knew making the 2025 Met Gala best-dressed list would never be a simple as pulling on a blazer. Acing the "Tailored for You" dress code while honoring the red carpet evening's theme, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" required a deep understanding of the Black dandy—and the Black designers, writers, models, stylists, and editors who've shaped that legacy.
The May 5 Met Gala red carpet, where Zendaya stunned in bridal white and Doechii made her Met Gala debut, was about so much more than the first impressions lighting up the Marie Claire Slack. It celebrated the upcoming costume exhibit inspired by Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. "Black dandyism and tailoring traditions have such a rich, documented history dating back centuries," costume historian Shelby Ivey Christie told Marie Claire. The exhibit incorporates exquisitely tailored pieces dating from the late 1800s to the Harlem Renaissance and the present day. With such a sweeping legacy of Black style icons to honor, the best-dressed list "demands archival research and historical understanding."
