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Best 50-Plus Looks at New York City’s 2025 Met Gala
Diana Ross, Colman Domingo, Madonna and others commanded the spotlight at the annual high-fashion event
(From left) The Met Gala’s best-dressed include: Deborah Roberts, Jeff Goldblum, Pharrell Williams, Diana Ross, Madonna, Colman Domingo, Tracee Ellis Ross, Gabrielle Union, Anna Wintour and Nicole Kidman.
AARP (From left: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Michael Buckner/Penske Media via Getty Images; Theo Wargo/FilmMagic/Getty Images; Kevin Mazur/MG25/Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Kevin Mazur/MG25/Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Michael Loccisano/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images; Theo Wargo/FilmMagic/Getty Images; Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images; Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
It’s fashion's biggest night of the year: the Met Gala. At the New York City star-studded event, designers, celebrities and models line up to see — and be seen — on the blue daisy-carpeted steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This year’s theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” was inspired by Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. The official gala dress code, “Tailored for You,” focused on the “Black dandy” and the influence of black designers and culture on fashion. Top designers dressed attendees in themed variations and vied for the most jaw-dropping (often outrageous) looks.
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The annual fundraiser benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute; a themed exhibition starts May 6.
Presiding over the spectacle is Vogue editor Anna Wintour, along with co-chairs — award-winning actor Colman Domingo, 55, Formula 1 racecar driver Lewis Hamilton, rapper-actor-entrepreneur A$AP Rocky and singer-songwriter-producer Pharrell Williams, 52. (Honorary chair, LeBron James, backed out of the event Monday afternoon due to a knee injury that occurred at the end of the NBA season.)
See all the evening's fabulous looks:
(From left) Kevin Mazur/MG25/Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Diana Ross, 81
The fabulous Miss Ross still knows how to make an entrance. The iconic singer returned to the gala — her first since 2003 — wearing a show-stopping silver-white figure-hugging gown topped by an enormous hat and cape trimmed in feathers, a collaboration between Ross, her son Evan, and the designer Ugo Mozie. Ross credited Evan with convincing her to attend the gala. She told Vogue that the outfit held extra meaning to her. Inside the train, “has the names of my children and my eight grandchildren,” she revealed. “So, everybody’s name is embroidered in.”
(From left) Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Anna Wintour, 75
The queen of the gala wore a custom Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton sleeveless floor-length silver embroidered gown topped by an ice-blue dress coat and broach. Wintour said to E! that the opening song on the steps of the Met — “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” sung a cappella by an all-mens choir — was “very special. The whole exhibition has been very moving and very special to me.”
Theo Wargo/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Gabrielle Union, 52
The Bring It On actress sported a classic, with a twist. Union's impeccably tailored Prada black matte column gown featured a long white train adorned with flowers, matching the ones she wore in her hair. Perfect!
(From left) Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images; Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
Colman Domingo, 55
All hail, Domingo! The Four Seasons star and AARP Movies for Grownups winner’s first look of the evening was a royal-inspired blue pleated Valentino cape embellished with a sequined white breastplate. He shed his cape to reveal outfit number two — a modern take on the zoot suit — a checked wool jacket with pearl and crystal embroidery, paired with wool trousers and embellished with a silk flower brooch with hand-painted polka dots. Domingo told Vogue that the blue cape was a nod to famed creative director André Leon Talley and the hue had additional meaning.
"Othello the Moor, kings, the color blue — a color that, when we were doing our research ... [we found] a free slave wanted to wear his finest blue, superfine wool suit. It gives you choir, it gives you king, all those moments.”
Michael Loccisano/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images
Tracee Ellis Ross, 52
Always the fashionista, Ross brought color and pageantry to the event in a theatrical Marc Jacobs rose-colored outfit she deemed “animated joy and artistry.” Her eye-catching ensemble included a giant sash tied into a bow on her back and a playful Stephen Jones hat. The Black-ish star declared to Vogue, “I’m a natural dandy. I don’t live by anyone else’s definition of me.”
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Jeff Goldblum, 72
The always-dapper Golblum channeled his Wicked wizard alter-ego in a Wales Bonner fur-trimmed coat styled with a cluster of unique broaches. “Grace [Wales Bonner] is a dream … the genius and the craftsmanship. I am thrilled to wear [the outfit].” Goldblum noted of the night’s menswear theme: “It’s a gesture and it’s a protest in a way… I support it wholeheartedly.”
John Shearer/WireImage/Getty Images
Demi Moore, 62
Hot off winning AARP’s Movies for Grownups best actress award and being named People’s World’s Most Beautiful Woman, Moore brought her A-game. The Substance star looked stunning in a black-and-white Thom Browne off-the-shoulder gown with a dramatic sculptural headpiece that channeled a three-dimensional men’s necktie.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Audra McDonald, 54
What a week for McDonald. First a record-breaking 11th Tony nomination for her role in Gypsy and then she scores again with this showstopper: a cream-colored column gown with a giant ruffle at the waist and pooling opera cape, created by Los Angeles designer Charles Harbison. McDonald told Variety that she was thrilled to learn about the theme for this year’s gala. “Honestly, I thought, ‘It’s about time.’ Someone just asked me where I think Black creativity came from, why it is, and what it is, and I said, ‘Because when we were taken away from our motherland, that’s all we had. All we had was ourselves, our souls, our bodies.’ From that, we survived and thrived.”
(From left) Mike Coppola/MG25/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Pharell Williams, 52
The evening’s co-chair and creative director of Louis Vuitton turned heads in a bespoke double-breasted pinstriped jacket of his design, adorned with 100,000 pearls. (Yes, pearls.) Williams said that Black working-class men were his fashion inspiration. “They do the hard work, but then when it’s time to get fresh, they get dandy and super fine,” he told Vanity Fair. “I’m inspired by the working class because that’s where I come from.”
Madonna, 66
The Queen of Pop has a storied history with menswear. So it was no surprise that in her grand return to the Met (her first since 2018) Madonna looked impeccable in a monchromatic white satin suit designed by Haider Ackermann for Tom Ford. She accessorized the look with a cummerbund, bowtie, boutonnière, lace gloves (so very Material Girl) and ... a cigar. Can you say smokin’ hot?
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Ava DuVernay, 52
DuVernay told the Hollywood Reporter her black-and-white Met Gala gown held a special significance. “My great-grandmother migrated from Texas to Los Angeles in 1917. Two years later, she found herself in a portrait studio and she took a picture with the garment that is a humbler version of this,” she explained. “And so I gave that to my friends at Prada, and they did a bedazzled version. I’m really grateful to them, because I get to salute her.”
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Deborah Roberts, 64
The 20/20 co-anchor, who covered the event for ABC, looked on point in a stylish Mark Ingram white cutaway gown with sleeveless cuffs and tuxedo pants. She bumped into her husband, Al Roker, who was repping for NBC, on the red carpet. “Nice to see you. You look great,” Deborah joked. “So do you,” he responded. And with a tip of their matching top hats, they parted ways with work to do.
(From left) Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images; Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Nicole Kidman, 57
Kidman went for understated elegance in a black custom-made Balenciaga reinterpretation of a 1952 Cristobal Balenciaga Couture evening gown with multiple layers of petticoats, double black bows and a stand-out square neckline. The Babygirl star complemented the ensemble with wrist gloves, Omega jewels, and a new, stylish, short-cropped ‘do. She told Vogue her outfit “was “inspired in support of all of those gorgeous, gorgeous dandies and the women that then honored them and supported them or protected them. So I’m happy to be here as one of them.”
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