The Women Who Wore Masculinity: Dandyism, Power, and Performance at the 2025 Met Gala

The 2025 Met Gala is more than just a red carpet. It's one of fashion's biggest nights, with celebrities and prominent figures showing up to the famed museum for the invite-only fundraising gala...for $75,000 a pop. This year's theme was inspired by Monica L. Miller's book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Attendees' looks often tilted toward the traditionally masculine, with many of the women showing up in tailored suites typically worn by the men. The new takes on a classic showed how the designers and the wearers pushed the boundaries of identity, gender, and power.

At first glance, it may have seemed like this year’s event centered men, but the brilliance of the evening was in how women embodied and transformed the theme. The dandy, by definition, is about elegance and tailoring at its simplest while also celebrating the performance, rebellion, and coded power of the men who dared to defy during the height of Black Dandy fashion. Women like Zendaya, Doechii, and Lupita Nyong’o took that ethos and turned it into something electric. Zendaya’s creamy white Louis Vuitton suit exuded quiet command, an intentional contrast to her usual high-drama gowns, proving that minimalism can be just as commanding as extravagance. Doechii spun the idea further into avant-garde territory, wearing a monogrammed Louis Vuitton suit with trouser shorts and a maroon bow tie.

The most provocative looks came from women who used tailoring to both mimic and mock traditional masculinity. Janelle Monáe’s Thom Browne ensemble included a hat, cape, monocle, and multiple layered suit motifs, telling a story as she went through a presentation of fashion as a "time-traveling dandy," stepping out of her first, boxier look into a fitted, sleek, red and white suit.

What these women proved is that Black dandyism is not, and has never been, the exclusive domain of men. It is a tradition of survival, rebellion, and beauty forged under pressure. As scholar Monica L. Miller argues in Slaves to Fashion, dandyism is a radical kind of freedom. The women at the Gala carried that torch, not just borrowing masculine codes, but twisting them into new, personal forms of armor and expression.

At an event often criticized for its elitism, these women wore history, defiance, and pride. In doing so, they reminded the world that fashion is about so much more than fabric or designers. It’s about identity, power, and the right to take up space in rooms that were never built for you. A true art form.