rosa parks panties, and other indignities.

the met gala round-up.

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last year, the metropolitan museum of art announced the costume institute’s 2025 Met Gala theme to be superfine: tailoring black style, dedicated to looking at the fashions of the black dandy and how they have evolved over time. based on the work of co-curator and professor of africana studies at columbia university monica miller’s 2009 book slaves to fashion: black dandyism and the styling of black diasporic identity, the met’s curation this year was focused on examining the importance of clothing to the formation of black identities.

in slaves to fashion, miller describes the dandy as a “figure that can, at once, subvert and fulfill normative categories of identity at different times and places as a gesture of self-articulation.” to be a black dandy is to therefore step outside the realms of white dress and dignify oneself by drawing from the rich, sprawling fashion history seen the diaspora over. an evolution of the white dandyism movement that started up in 19th-century britain and encouraged opulence, elegance and good taste in men’s fashion, the classic black dandy adopts- in the words of zora neale hurston-a “lifestyle marked by elegance, sophistication and a highly refined aesthetic”. put simply, dandyism is the art of having that shit on.

your older brother’s bedazzled durag? a marker of a true, 90s born dandy. your grandmother’s embroidered fan and matching church crown? the very embodiment of sophistication.

think of any picture you’ve seen of james baldwin looking unbearably chic and you’ve got a fundamental understanding of the concept. bold fabric choices, impeccable tailoring, dressing with personality and intention. who are you? what do you believe? where do your people come from? show me through the slant of your hat or the cut of your vest just how you feel about yourself and your place in the world. smile wide and let your gold crowns glow radiant with the joy you have fought to protect.

be black and proud of it. be bold.

there was so much to draw from, such beauty to tap into and yet instead we were met mostly with middling fits and conflicting politics. i have no real interest in making this a best/worst dressed list piece; every publication under the sun can tell you who wore what and why. i want to dig into the moral greyness of it all; the hypocrisy and beauty that were on display simultaneously. the story of the night can be told with a few looks:

andre leon talley lives on.

three things are certain in life: death, taxes and colman domingo understanding the assignment. he floated out of that hotel in a royal blue valentino cape reminiscent of the exuberant kaftans of andre leon talley. if you follow me on any platform, you will know just how much ALT has meant to me.

i’ll talk a little bit later on about my complicated feelings about the theme as it relates to him specifically but what a bittersweet joy it was to see his children pay homage so beautifully. that elaborate silver chest piece feels like regalia, all pomp and power, which is fitting seeing as fashion has a new reigning king. that robe of his came off at the bottom of the steps to reveal a tweed suit, tailored to perfection. a silk scarf served in place of a tie. i wish i could steal it from him.

if colman paid homage to andre the fashion titan, tessa thompson’s sunday best interpretation of the theme was an ode to ALT, the godly man. he fell in love with the fashion of church, how black people came alive every sunday through the garments they stored away for the occasion. that flair and self-respect he inherited from his elders carried him through the cruel, chiffon trenches of the fashion world.

tessa carried a church fan with his face painted on it, acknowledging him as one of those ancestors now. a feast for the eyes and the heart. he would have adored it. i admit that these are technically two separate looks but they feel like halves of the same love letter, so i will be grouping them together. andre, look upon your work. do you not feel pride?

a lesson in time.

if colman domingo isn’t yet a father, how does one explain the existence of jeremy pope? he turned up in the martin margiela AW ‘97 bodice and was a sight for sore eyes. he spoke about how the bodice represented the dress-form mannequin all fashion creation begins with. his wearing of it elevates the piece and ties it to our people; from the cotton pickers america’s economy was built on the backs off to the thousands of nameless black tailors and atelier workers whose fingers have bled in the name of high fashion, we have and will always be where creativity itself is birthed.

the bodice is also quite literally a marker of the spiritual ‘reconstruction’ miller speaks about in her book; olivier rousteing took a similar route with his look for rosalia, his muse posed as mannequin for the black artist’s gaze in his creation of her dress.

i adored all the nerdy looks the best. the understated ones, quietly confident in the story they were telling. lewis hamilton’s custom wales bonner moment was another lesson in pulling references and knowing your history.

superfine indeed.

adorned in cowry shells and ivory like our forefathers, he looked like a prince from another time. of our people. those materials aren’t simply meant to decorate- they were also once currency, quite literally a signifier of wealth and ancestral heritage. this is the difference between a costume and a look: sincerity. earnestness. homework.

do not be alarmed though. not all the guests were as politically sound and intentional as he was.

rosa parks pussy-gate.

a few weeks back, a video went viral of k-pop ‘rapper’ lisa (this is the term her stans push on us; in reality, she’s as much a rapper as i am a tennis player which is to say i play occasionally and always brag about my wins as if all the points i have to my name are not courtesy of my doubles partner), saying slurs like she was doing background vocals for a biggie diss track. a member of infamous korean girlgroup blackpink, lisa is, in my opinion, the cultural appropriation final boss, a hefty title to have earned in an industry where idols are throwing nigger-themed birthday parties and doing blackface. when i tell you she puts the black in blackpink, know that i am not exaggerating-box braids, grills, durags. this is a woman who loves to look niggerly. i bet she’s seen get out more than three times.

you can, then, imagine my anxiety when i realised that she would be in attendance for a met gala with the word ‘black’ in the theme title. i played a little game with myself: how ghoulish will her grills be? how many people would need to help her with the train of her durag? (my imagination is wild but is also accurate- we did indeed get a white girl dragging a lace durag train about like it owed her money. why is it that our caricatures of white people are never as bad as the reality?)

at first glance, lisa’s LV ensemble is bleakly plain. pharell williams has spent the past few seasons at louis vuitton proving that being stylish and famous does not automatically make you creative director material; his client’s looks proved as much last night. the moment you look closer at her outfit though, the more obvious it becomes that there is something amiss. you look at her lace clad pussy and notice faces smiling back at you. you squint: rosa parks, is that you?!

islam encourages forgiveness but i fear the angels shall have to transcribe the hate burning in my heart and report it back to big G. what narcotics do you have to be on to think it appropriate to embroider the face of a black woman onto the coochie of a culture vulture? in what world does rosa parks need to be anywhere near a k-pop idol’s nether regions? the sheer audacity of it knocked the wind out of me. this is what capitalism has left us with- the shallow reproduction of cultural revolution in the hopes of selling something, reducing the names and faces and iconography of our most politically minded to mere talking points. it was the most glaring issue of the night. how much of this moment can be counted as sincere if so many of the attendees chose to strip the theme of the political clarity the likes of miller have injected it with?

so many of the white attendees turned up in lazy, lacklustre fits, mostly ignoring the theme. it was further proof that non-Black people are only interested in partaking in our clothing customs when it is without our consent. they were invited to show out alongside us (for what reason is beyond me); we were met with resistance, even from those who built their cultural clout on our backs. the disrespect didn’t stop at rosa parks panties though (the fact that i even have to type those words out in succession makes me want to strangle myself with my new jersey hijab).

lisa of blackpink, i raise you:

need a prop? how about a black baby?

central cee is a man who irks me. for my non-brits, he’s a wasian rapper who spends as much time playing ‘hard white boy’ as he does crowning himself the king of grime. instead of bowing his head to the black british mc’s whose raps the genre was built on, the skinny tosser is convinced he is the one we should all be grateful to. this is- of course- a load of bullocks. cee has always been transparent to me in his trope-y mimicry of black britishness, so his attendance was another i had noted down as bothersome. it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to help it but by God did he outdo himself (derogatory).

he stepped out, suited, with his hair braided. gone was the tracksuit he has famously refused to change out of; interesting that when he needs to be ‘presentable’ he is willing to put on a suit and tie, despite his previous petulant promises to never change. he had a cigar in one hand. cradled against his hip with the other was a little black boy. to this moment, i have no clue whose black baby that man was busy using as an accessory. it felt to me like a very apt metaphor for his entire career, parading around with black people in the hopes of being accepted as cool.

we do not accept you. go back to chasing posh instagram models and leave our babies alone, abeg.

a st(r)ained relationship.

i can’t lie, i giggled.

anna wintour- or la bob as i call her- has been at the helm of vogue since before i was born. her influence is undeniable- in fact, it was her tenure at the magazine that brought about the met gala to begin with. she is also a conniving white woman. her (mis)treatment of andre leon talley is well-documented, both in his own autobiography and from the accounts of other insiders who knew them both. fat-phobic, discriminatory and all around callous, she was responsible for trapping him with a glass ceiling during his time at vogue while she simultaneously depended on him to make her palatable and stylish.

la bob isn’t stupid though. as she watched BLM take over public consciousness, she knew to pivot. cue the ‘i take responsibility for bullying black talent and degrading them for years’ apology and a promise to do better. fashion as a whole followed suit (pun intended), with more promises made to include us at all levels. this met gala feels like that apology; a more optimistic person would revel in it entirely and part of me has. to see my people reach within themselves and their history and express it loudly healed the little version of me who used to be sacred to walk outside with my dirac on out of fear of being called out or picked on.

it would, though, be disrespectful- to andre, to all the black creatives working in the industry- to not be critical of this moment too. almost every covetable creative director position seems to belong to some white man. in fact, at kering- the conglomerate that owns brands like gucci, bottega veneta and balenciaga- every single creative director position is held by a white man. the homogeneity of these appointments is powered by the same superiority complex that drove anna wintour to strip andre leon talley of his moment at the top of the met gala steps the moment he started to outshine her.

she mentioned him briefly last night- ‘we are here to honor men like our friend andre’ she said- and it awoke a bitterness in me. he was stood in front of you and you chose to pick apart his muchness, i wanted to yell. you do not get to cite him now among his people and use him to prop up your legacy.

why do black artists have to die in order to get the respect they deserve? we are radiant and worth fussing over even as we live. let us make a habit of remembering that.

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thank you for reading! i’ll have another piece out on saturday for all my paid subscribers so please look forward to it. what were you guys’ favorite looks or moments? is there someone who got on your nerves as much as central cee got on mine? i want all the hot takes.

until next time loves,

aa x