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    The Met’s Next Costume Fashion Blockbuster Take On the Politics of Race

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    With support from LeBron James, ASAP Rocky, Pharrell Williams and more.The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is wading into the politics of race relations.On Wednesday, the museum announced that its spring 2025 blockbuster fashion show will be “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” focusing on the history of the Black dandy and the way peacocking goes beyond aesthetics to empowerment. ASAP Rocky, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour will be co-chairs of the gala that opens the show; LeBron James will be the honorary chair.The Met’s first fashion exhibition to focus solely on the work of designers of color, as well as the first in more than two decades to focus explicitly on men’s wear, the show is another step in the Costume Institute’s efforts to rectify its own historic failures in diversity and inclusion, said Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge.“I wanted to stage a show on race that could use our collection to tell a story that had been absent from the conversation both within the museum and outside,” Mr. Bolton said. “This is a first of its kind.”LeBron James will be the honorary chair of the event. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThe goal, he said, is to demonstrate what happens to the concept of the “dandy,” as defined by Beau Brummell in Regency England, when it is racialized. When, for example, an enslaved person is treated as a luxury object to be dressed up and displayed — and how those clothes in turn were appropriated by the enslaved and used to subvert existing systems and create new identities. Additionally, it will illustrate how contemporary Black men’s wear designers use their work to connect to this tradition.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé Missed the 2024 Met Gala

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      In the week leading up to the Met Gala, tabloids volleyed predictions about Taylor Swift’s possible attendance: She would be there with her football player boyfriend, Travis Kelce! Actually, she wouldn’t! She might go but leave Mr. Kelce at home!On Monday night, fans finally got their answer. The party of the year would have to go on without Ms. Swift.Other notable absences from the red carpet: Beyoncé, who had not been expected to attend, and Rihanna, who seemed poised to be the closing act of fashion’s annual parade of one-upmanship.Last year, every other guest had walked the carpet — as had one uninvited cockroach — before Rihanna arrived at 10:15 p.m., wrapped in Valentino camellias that she said made her feel “expensive.”Rihanna, 36, who swung from pop stardom into a prosperous second act as a lingerie and makeup mogul, told Extra TV earlier in the week that she had planned on attending the gala. People magazine reported on Monday that the singer had come down with the flu.The singer had become one of the most hotly anticipated presences on the Met’s steps. Her turn as a miniskirted pope in 2018 touched off an internet frenzy, and the 55-pound, daffodil yellow gown she wore in 2015 helped earn its designer a slot on the haute couture schedule in Paris.The gala’s influence as a joint advertising opportunity for brands, sponsors and celebrities depends in part on the level of star power that is willing to show up. The gala still attracted boldface names this year, including Zendaya and Jennifer Lopez, but many fans online said that the lack of Rihanna had been a blow. (Some even circulated images of the singer hitting the carpet that appeared to have been created by artificial intelligence.)Rihanna has been a frequent presence at the gala in recent years, but Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have not attended since 2016.Ms. Swift began attending the gala in 2008 and was a co-chair in 2016. In the past year she has not exactly been hurting for the Met’s spotlight: Her Eras Tour stimulated both economic and seismic activity on its yearlong (and counting) romp around the world, and her recent album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” overcame mixed reviews to become her 14th release to hit reach No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.Beyoncé attended the gala seven times from 2008 to 2016, toying with silhouette in strapless Armani and mermaid-style Emilio Pucci gowns. She has lately been leading a high-fashion rodeo in wide-brimmed hats and western boots while promoting her album “Cowboy Carter.”Even without showing up to the Met on the first Monday in May, Beyoncé wields immense power in the fashion sphere, Vanessa Friedman, the chief fashion critic of The New York Times, recently wrote: “She is practically a Met Gala unto herself.” More

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      Kim Kardashian Stuns Met Gala in Corset That Leaves Little Room to Breathe

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      Kim Kardashian created a hoo-ha at the 2022 Met Gala when she admitted to going on a crash diet to fit into the Marilyn Monroe “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress she wore to pose on the museum steps.This year, however, she engaged in a different kind of body modification via the extreme corseting of the Maison Margiela by John Galliano couture dress she wore, cinched so tight at the waist it turned her figure into an hourglass version of the X Games. It was to tight, it was hard to imagine how she could breathe — let alone eat once inside the museum.Viewers on social media immediately took notice. “Kim Kardashian honestly looks so uncomfortable and like she can barely move or even breathe,” posted one observer. “Fashion shouldn’t be like that.”“Everyone is snatching their waist,” another wrote on X. “They said the one rule in the garden of time is no breathing, from Bad Bunny to Kim Kardashian.”The corseting had been a feature of Mr. Galliano’s much ballyhooed January Margiela couture show, where it had been worn by both men and women, and where “making of” photographs on Mr. Galliano’s mood boards displayed the bruises left on the models’ flesh by the lacing. (Ms. Kardashian had been in the front row of that show.)In the incarnation worn this time around by Ms. Kardashian, the corset was re-imagined in an antique silver brocade, and paired with a sheer silver metal skirt covered in lacy flowers, twigs, and mirror shards, to reflect the evening’s dress code, “The Garden of Time.” The idea of suffering for fashion, it turns out, is everlasting.Gina Cherelus More