You may have read this story before—the one where a Vogue writer (me) tries to go to every single Met Gala after-party. That’s because I’ve now written it four different times over four different years: In 2022, my then-boss Chioma Nnadi—now the head of editorial content at British Vogue—came up with the assignment after she heard of five post-Met events following “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.” The number struck her as absurd. Would I want to try to go to them all and write about it? I did. It’s since become an annual assignment.
Little did Chioma (and I) realize that the number was celebratory child’s play. This year, the 2025 Met Gala had 17—yes, 17—after-parties associated with it: a de facto social odyssey only five short of Homer’s 24-book epic. “You’re fucking with me,” I told Lilah Ramzi, Vogue’s parties editor, when she added the eleventh Met Gala after-party to my list: Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s late-night rollerblade disco at Xanadu Roller Arts in Brooklyn. Lilah assured me she was not. Then she started a new row on our shared Excel Document for a 12th—A$AP Rocky at Jean’s. That number kept creeping up until 5:49pm on May 4, when she added the final and 17th entry: Janelle Monae and Doechii at the Public Hotel.
At 10:30pm the next night, just as Usher took to the stage to perform at the 2025 Met Gala, I set off into the night with an $150 Emilia Wickstead gown from The RealReal, a Duane Reade umbrella, and a dream of making it to every single Met Gala after-party.
I’ll spoil the ending now: I didn’t. But like Homer, it was quite the journey trying.
Party One: Willy Chavaria and Don Julio At The Mark Hotel
I get to The Mark Hotel, where Willy Chavaria is hosting an after-party with Don Julio, at 10:30 p.m. There are no celebrities here yet—they’re still at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, listening to Usher—but this party is packed. The Mark is a famous getting ready location for celebrities during the Met Gala. Now that they’re out the door, all the stylists, agents, makeup artists, assistants, and hairdressers that put together their looks are finally off the clock. And they’re ready to drink.
The main topic of conversation? Not this event, but the next one. “I think I’ll go to GQ and then Pharrell’s,” one stylist says to another. “Do we think A$AP Rocky is worth going to?” He asks back.
This is what I call a “starter party”: the party you go to in preparation for the next party. The “starter party” has the following qualifications: it is in a convenient location, it’s easy to get a drink at the bar, and, most importantly, you don’t feel weird walking into it alone. Indeed, it feels like everyone’s here meeting up with somebody before going somewhere else. And that somewhere else is likely not a place you want to arrive solo at.
Although maybe I’m wrong: as I leave with my friend Laurence, we see a waiter setting up club-like tables with bottles of Don Julio. For some people, it seems, this is the grand finale.
Party Two: Cartier at The Carlyle
It feels almost like a disservice to call Cartier’s annual party at The Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar, well, a party. Because it is just so goddamn classy: waiters in white jackets hand out champagne and sausage rolls on silver trays as bartenders sling espresso martinis with drawings by Ludwig Bemelman behind them. I grab one and slide into a booth to do my favorite thing: people watch.
Jeremy Allen White walks in solo, hands in his pocket, head stooped. Louis Partridge politely gives his name to the Cartier check-in staff and makes small talk about how great his first Met Gala was. Quinta Brunson is here milling about.
But something feels amiss. I’m not trying to say that the names I just dropped aren’t impressive ones. However, Cartier is usually the most celeb-heavy party of the night. And most of the celebs? They’re simply... not here. Which leaves me to wonder: Where the hell are they? I check my watch. It’s midnight.
“Let’s go,” I say to Laurence. “Everyone must be at the GQ party.”
We head back out into the rain, as it turns out, everyone else is heading in: I learn later that Emma Chamberlain, Aimee Lou Wood, Lana Del Rey, Miley Cyrus, Ayo Edebiri, Jeff Goldblum, Colman Domingo, and a bunch of famous faces all stopped by after we left. Del Ray even did a surprise performance, singing “Candy Necklace” alongside Jon Batiste. Everyone wasn’t at someone else’s party—I was just too impatient for them to arrive.
Party Three: GQ’s After-Party Co-Hosted By Will Welch, André 3000, Grace Wales Bonner, Law Roach, and Anok Yai
GQ’s post-Met event is at The Twenty Two’s Cafe Zaffri, the restaurant slash private club that’s one of the hottest reservations in New York City right now. Essentially: this is a trendy party at a trendy place with trendy people.
I’ve changed out of my Met Gala ballgown and into a short mini dress from Monse. Or, erm, attempted to: “I swear it fits!” I say in the back of an SUV as my colleague and friend Ian tries to jam it over my head. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Now I’m carrying my clutch in a strategic way to cover my broken zipper, and Ian’s hand is bleeding. But it’s fine: Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner are here, also in minidresses. So the whole thing is a vibe, right? That’s not a rhetorical question—I ask Ian, who is still clutching his hand. He assures me it is. I saddle up to the bar and grab a margarita.
I run into a stylist friend, who knows I’m trying to go to as many Met Gala parties as possible. He scans my Excel sheet, his eyes settling on entry number nine: Walton Goggins after-party at The Mulberry, which starts at 2 a.m. “Sounds like a coke fest,” he mutters under his breath.
Party Four: Peoples
Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O. Harris, Tyler Mitchell, and more are co-hosting an “intimate” after-party at People’s, the Greenwich Village lounge that’s amassed a cult following since opening in an old townhouse this fall. Yet as soon as doorman Frankie Carattini—wearing Thom Browne, nonetheless—ushers me in, I realize that “intimate” probably means around 100 people, and most of them are… extremely famous.
Robert Pattinson is having a heart to heart with Jeremy Allen White. They’re later joined by Suki Waterhouse. Tracee Ellis Ross and Diana Ross are taking mother-daughter selfies together in a corner. Someone angles to take a picture of a brunette in a crisp button-down and another in a crop top—which Laurence and I quickly realize are Charli XCX and Lorde. Frantically, realizing we are in the background of their shot, we duck. The Dare lights up a cigarette inside and a whole crew joins him.
At this point, it’s 2:30 a.m. in the morning—and I realize I have to get going if I want to make more of the stops on my list. But as rumors fly that Jennie is on her way, it’s a hard room to leave.
As I begrudgingly walk out into the rain, Jeremy O. Harris stops me. “Where are you going?” He asks, smoking a cigarette.
“Baz’s party at Monsieur,” I say back.
He smiles.
“Blow Baz a kiss for me.”
Party Five: Baz Luhrmann’s After-Party at Monsieur
“I swear I’m on your list,” I say, exasperated, to the doorman at Monsieur’s, Baz Luhrmann and Jon Neidich’s East Village lounge.
“I don’t see your name here,” he says back, flatly.
A sprinter van pulls out and a group of well-dressed and attractive people pull up. I recognize one of them—a male model that’s constantly out and about. “Do you need any help getting in?” He says, as he breezes past the rope. He’s inside before I even get to take him up on his (likely not real) offer. It starts to rain harder. My mascara starts to run down my cheek.
Just as I’m about to leave in silent, damp humiliation, Neidich throws open the door to let me in. I give the doorman a sweet smile—see! I was on your list!—before heading in.
Luhrmann is there, holding court in a private room with his wife, Catherine Martin. People are having a blast on the dance floor.
But I’m unsettled. I just got a text from a friend who is over in Meatpacking, where Pharrell is hosting an Uno tournament at The Crane Club. They’re handing out prizes—Rolexes, he heard. Laurence grabs my hand to dance, but I pull it away.
“Let’s leave,” I say.
“You sure?” He asks back.
“Yes. I want to go to Pharrell’s party.”
So back into the SUV we go.
Party Five: A$AP Rocky at Jean’s
A$AP Rocky’s after-party at Jean’s—which was advertised as a “space of his own design” on the invitation—is on the way from Monsieur to The Crane Club. So we decided to do a quick pit stop. We walk in and frankly, it’s pretty empty.
It’s past 3 a.m. at this point. Logic would have it that this party is emptying out because people are, well, going to bed. But instead it just fuels me with a delusion that it’s because everyone must be at Pharrell’s. So after one quick and unmemorable lap, we’re back in the car.
Party Six and Seven: Savannah James and Pharrell at The Crane Club
Technically, Crane Club is hosting two parties: one by Savannah James upstairs and another by Pharrell downstairs. But that’s really semantics because I was incorrect: everyone wasn’t at Pharrell’s. In fact, as a kind PR person told me, the Uno tournament ended about 15 minutes ago. I assure her that I will acknowledge this in my write-up. So here’s me staying true to my word.
Party Eight: Walton Goggins (Allegedly) at The Mulberry
When I got my invitation to Walton Goggins’s after-party at The Mulberry Bar, its start time was 2 a.m. If there was any place that was the late-night party, I figured, it had to be this one.
Laurence and I walk in… and don’t recognize a single soul. I squint at someone in the bathroom line. “I think maybe that is an actor from The Summer I Turned Pretty?” Then I look closer. “Actually, I’m not sure.”
We get a drink and sit in the booth. Maybe, I think, people will trickle in.
Like so many times tonight, I was wrong. Turns out the late night party was one I already left: just as I was staring at an empty dance floor, Charli XCX, Jeremy O. Harris, Julia Fox, Lewis Hamilton, Rosé from Blackpink were all at Monsieur. Many didn’t leave until the sun came up.
Every year after this assignment, I always get asked what the most fun Met Gala after-party was. Usually I just say which one had the most recognizable celebrities at it—that, I figure, is what this person wants to hear, about how Cardi B rapped on stage or how charismatic Jude Law was.
But if I’m being honest? I don’t know.
Because here’s the thing about chasing parties. The whole time you’re just wondering if there’s some other room, with other people, that’s somehow “cooler”—a nebulous concept—than the one you’re standing in. You’re never content where you are. And when you are never content where you are, nothing feels cool. Life’s strange that way. You start having fun when you don’t care about having it.
The DJ at The Mulberry starts to play Madonna. Laurence, for the second time that night, offers me his hand to dance. And this time, I take it. “Do you take song requests?” I shout at the DJ. “Could you play ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?’”
He doesn’t hear me.
I never did see Walton Goggins that night. Maybe he came later. Or maybe he didn t come at all.
I arrive home at just before 5 a.m. I take off my Manolo Blahniks, careful not to rip the blisters that have formed on my heels. I unzip my half broken Monse dress and leave it on my floor. I stare in the mirror, pulling out my fake eyelashes out one by one. And then I find myself singing: “I come home in the morning light, My mother says, ‘When you gonna live your life right?’”
