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Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams will co-chair Monday’s Met Gala, alongside Vogue’s Anna Wintour and honorary chair LeBron James.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ draws inspiration from Monica L Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. In the context of dandyism, the exhibit will feature garments and artworks that explore the style of Black men throughout history.
This year’s Met Gala co-hosts all extend the Black dandy tradition in ways specific to our current moment, says fashion and costume historian Shelby Ivey Christie, adding that their approaches have not just artistic merit, but business finesse. “Black dandyism has always been about using precise self-presentation to challenge limitations placed on Black expression,” she says. “Just like Frederick Douglass used portrait photography and precise clothing to counter racist imagery, these men are using fashion deliberately to expand possibilities for Black representation. Their choices aren’t random — they’re strategic.”
These choices have made each of the four co-hosts and honorary chair majorly influential in fashion, gaining favour with luxury brands and communicating to music, film, sports and fashion fans alike through their sartorial choices. Vogue Business breaks down the co-hosts’ fashion industry impact ahead of the big night.
Colman Domingo (co-host)
Domingo has had a stellar year. But he’s been making waves on the red carpet for many prior. In 2017, the actor partnered with stylist duo Wayman and Micah, and began leaning into bold, playful looks. In this, Domingo helped to spearhead the menswear style shift away from boring black and navy suits towards more flamboyant outfits — which has turned out to be very good business for brands leaning into the vibe shift. “We love putting him in tailored ’fits that highlight his stature, and we love using accessories to innovate and elevate his looks,” Wayman and Micah told Vogue.
“Colman Domingo’s mastery of sharp, architectural silhouettes while marrying rich textures, layered patterns and contrasting hues notably reflects the excellence of the traditional Black dandy,” says Cydni M Robertson, assistant professor of fashion and marketing at Indiana University Bloomington. “What makes Colman’s style so significant is how he uses fashion to express the fullness of his identity as an openly gay Black man in an industry that has historically expected both Black men and queer people to minimise themselves,” Christie adds.
Domingo is a newly minted Valentino ambassador, and has appeared in a slew of Alessandro Michele’s Valentino looks this year. At the Golden Globes, Domingo donned a black suit, a silk polka-dot shirt and a checkered necktie, tied into a bow. At the SAG Awards, Domingo opted for a cream blazer and black suit pants, paired with neck scarf and bowtie double-up. And at the Oscars, he wore red. “It felt like everything’s coming up roses,” he told Vogue of the look. All three ranked in the top four menswear looks for the respective events, based on media impact value (MIV), according to Launchmetrics. Throughout the quarter, Domingo’s Valentino appearances generated $7 million in MIV, as fans poured over his looks. His Oscars look alone culminated in $1.7 million in MIV in just five days. (MIV is the monetary value of posts, article mentions and social media interactions.)
Throughout the 2025 awards season, where Domingo wore not just Valentino but Versace, Marni and Boss, too — on top of accessories from the likes of Boucheron, Omega and Swarovski — the actor generated $36.4 million in MIV, per Launchmetrics.
Lewis Hamilton (co-host)
Hamilton is widely celebrated for bringing capital F fashion — and industry eyeballs — to the Formula One paddock. He first attended the Met Gala in 2015, and has become somewhat of a regular since. On and off the carpet, Hamilton works with stylist Eric McNeal to put together looks from the likes of Prada and Louis Vuitton to Wales Bonner and Rick Owens. He was named a Dior brand ambassador in July 2024.
In March 2025, he was also announced as Lululemon’s latest ambassador. It’s an athleisure-world signal of Hamilton’s modern approach to dress — where other athletes partner with Nike or Adidas, or even On, the F1 star opted for the brand better known for women’s yoga pants (which he himself didn’t know made men’s gear until shortly before the deal was inked, he told GQ). Hamilton was onto something: the collab generated $2.3 million in MIV in the first week post-announcement, according to Launchmetrics.
The impact goes beyond brands. “Lewis Hamilton is fascinating because he’s using fashion as cultural intervention,” Christie says, pointing out the fact that Hamilton purchased an entire table to spotlight emerging Black talent at the 2021 Met Gala. Designers Theophilio, Kenneth Nicholson and Jason Rembert were in attendance. “That’s transforming a photo op into actual economic opportunity.”
A$AP Rocky (co-host)
A$AP Rocky is deeply entrenched in the industry, with brand collaborations from Guess and Calvin Klein to JW Anderson under his belt. Christie traces Rocky’s industry impact back to his 2016 Dior campaign. “[It] wasn’t just about being the face of a brand — it was about bringing Harlem sensibilities to European fashion houses,” she says. This is now par for the course.
Bottega Veneta’s 2024 paparazzi campaign speaks for itself. For weeks, the brand dressed A$AP (and Kendall Jenner) in full-look Bottega. Rocky went about his day — headed for a run; picked up flowers; went out to dinner — and was, of course, photographed by the paps. These were shared on socials, covered by fashion media and, eventually, released as an official campaign by Bottega Veneta itself, its logo splashed across the images. The campaign generated $2.9 million in MIV in just two days — which doesn’t include all of the pap shots shared and covered in the weeks prior. Just as Bottega knew they would be.
Ray-Ban — Rocky’s latest venture, where he recently stepped into the brand’s first creative director role (generating $2.3 million in MIV in the two days post-announcement) — took a similar approach. In the press release announcing Rocky’s new position, the brand included eight paparazzi photos from the musician’s Los Angeles courthouse trial. It’s a signal that the star’s own spin on garments and accessories are what makes shoppers tick. Brands know this.
It’s Rocky’s reinterpretation of luxury through his own cultural lens that makes him a valuable partner for brands, Christie says. “Making these brands relevant to audiences they might otherwise struggle to reach,” she explains. Rocky’s keenness to challenge masculine style norms (with accessories from babushka scarves to strings of pearls) also expands the potential consumer base for the brands he works with, she adds.
Pharrell Williams (co-host)
It’s been two years since Williams was appointed creative director of Louis Vuitton. At the time, the news made a major splash — his appointment generated a whopping $38.1 million in MIV for Louis Vuitton in the month following the announcement, per Launchmetrics. “It’s somewhat serendipitous that Williams is the current creative director for Louis Vuitton,” Robertson says. “LV, a brand that dandy Dapper Dan has collaborated with for decades, has been a ‘mama I made it’ symbol within Black American culture for generations.”
Williams’s intertwining with fashion goes way back. He first collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a sunglasses line when the brand was helmed by Marc Jacobs in 2004. The year prior, he co-founded Billionaire Boys Club (and, later, Ice Cream) with Nigo. (He was later an advisor at Nigo’s brand Human Made.) Williams is a long-time collaborator with Adidas, as well as luxury labels from Moncler to Tiffany. His 2024 Tiffany collaboration generated $5 million in MIV for the brand (an LVMH stablemate). Before that, in 2022, he collaborated with the jewellery house on his now-signature diamond-encruated glasses. Williams’s time-tested ability to mix streetwear with couture is key to his success, experts agree.
Through his work prior to Louis Vuitton — and now at the storied house — Williams makes experimental fashion feel accessible, Christie says. “Pharrell’s play with proportions — like those shorts with tuxedo jackets — follows the tradition of manipulating European fashion codes to create something distinctly Black,” she says. “He’s consistently used fashion to expand what Black masculinity can look like in public spaces.”
LeBron James (honourary chair)
This is James’s first Met Gala, but he’s no stranger to the fashion sphere. James was among the first athletes to really lean into a fashion-first tunnel walk. “LeBron fundamentally changed how athletes approach fashion by making it part of his business model, not just a side interest,” Christie says. “When he started showing up with curated looks during the 2012 play-offs, he was signalling to other athletes — especially young Black men — that developing your style identity is part of building your brand. Now that pre-game tunnel walk is as much a part of NBA culture as the game itself.” James’s often-referenced 2018 Thom Browne shorts looks were a standout.
Fast forward to 2025, and the fashion industry has fully embraced sports. Luxury brands are tapping athletes for shows and campaigns almost as much as they are musicians and actors. Sports teams are hiring stylists. Fashion brands are collaborating with sports brands. But before fashion came on board, there was still major money to be made between athletes and sportswear players.
James’s impact extends well beyond those who clock his Thom Browne and Louis Vuitton outfits. Over the years, he’s released over 20 sneaker designs with Nike. And he shows no signs of slowing down. The latest, the Nike LeBron 22 sneaker, generated $4 million in MIV in the first quarter of 2025.
It was athletes like him who saw they could take their impact even further beyond the world of sports. “What’s most significant is how both [James and Hamilton] leveraged their style to create actual economic opportunities,” Christie says. “LeBron’s partnership with Thom Browne and Lewis creating platforms for Black designers weren’t just fashion moments. They were business moves that created pathways for others.”
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