This combination of photos shows, top row from left, Simone Biles, Doechii, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O. Harris and Regina King, and bottom row from left, Audra McDonald, Janelle Monáe, Angel Reese, Tyla and Usher. (AP Photo)
Met Gala guests, suit up! That was the order from on high as the Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed the dress code for its annual lavish celebration of fashion in May: “Tailored for You,” a nod to the accompanying exhibit’s focus on suiting and menswear.
It’s a suitable concept—meant to be liberally interpreted, of course—for the first Met Gala exhibit in more than 20 years to focus exclusively on menswear, specifically Black style in menswear over the centuries.
View this post on Instagram
The Met’s Costume Institute also announced on Tuesday that it will be reviving what it called a longstanding tradition of a “host committee”—basically a new slate of high-profile celebrities on top of the previously announced gala hosts: Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, and LeBron James. (Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who oversees the gala each year, rounds out the list.)
The new committee includes a slew of luminaries from various fields: 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.