Met Gala celebrates Black menswear and dandyism, includes Rihanna pregnancy surprise

Celebrities flooded the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a rainy Monday in New York City to highlight Black fashion and kick off the first Met Gala in more than 20 years with a menswear theme.

The event featured a Rihanna pregnancy announcement, a tuxedo choir and creative spins on menswear, with many of the women, including Zendaya, Teyana Taylor and Emma Chamberlain, donning pinstripes, structured lapels and other traditional men's detailing for their looks.

The gala, a fundraiser for the Met's Costume Institute, has traditionally been held on the first Monday of May, with looks inspired by its annual spring fashion exhibition, which this year is "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style."

Zendaya, a co-host last year, wore a perfectly tailored white trouser suit with a matching wide-brim hat from Louis Vuitton. Other female celebrities who opted for a suit included Madonna in a silky number, Doechii in Louis Vuitton shorts, and Chappell Roan in a glittery pink patchwork suit and matching cape.

Another popular interpretation of the theme was the "suit-as-gown," with Quinta Brunson in a pinstriped dress and matching suit jacket and Zoe Saldana in a sculptural gown with button detailing down the bodice.

This was the path Rihanna took, arriving fashionably late to close down the carpet in a black suit gown that showed off her baby bump.

A$AP Rocky, her partner and dad to their two kids, had confirmed the pregnancy to reporters earlier that day.

"It feels amazing, you know," he said. "It's time that we show the people what we was cooking up. And I'm glad everybody's happy for us because we're definitely happy."

Rocky, one of the co-chairs of the event, wore a custom suit designed by his creative agency, AWGE, complete with a diamond-crusted umbrella.

"Tonight is so special, especially celebrating Black excellence," he said during an interview with Vogue.

The other co-chairs were Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour, the mastermind behind the gala. NBA superstar LeBron James was slated to attend as honorary co-chair, but said Monday he would have to bow out due to the sprained knee he suffered in the Lakers' season-ending Game 5 loss to the Timberwolves.

The official dress code for gala guests was "Tailored for You," inspired by Black dandyism.

Domingo showed up in a pleated, gold-adorned blue cape, which he removed to reveal a black, white and grey suit, evoking the late Andre Leon Talley, the fashion icon who made history as a rare Black editor at Vogue.

Hamilton, who arrived Monday in an ivory suit and matching beret, told Vogue that, for him, tonight is a continuation of the 2021 Met Gala, when he bought a table specifically for up-and-coming Black designers.

"Fashion's really helped me become the person I am today," he said, adding that his outfit, designed by Grace Wales Bonner, took inspiration from the Harlem Renaissance.

The gala raises the bulk of the curation budget for the museum's Costume Institute. But the glitzy event, with its emphasis on high-end fashion and big-budget stars, has faced criticisms for decades that it is a parade of wealth that draws attention from other issues.

On Monday afternoon, pro-Palestinian protesters massed on the streets near the Met Gala, waving flags and chanting "Free Palestine."

Diana Ross shut down the carpet with a massive white train embroidered with the names of her children and grandchildren, in her first Met Gala appearance in 20 years.

She told Vogue that it was a "really, really last moment" decision to come, but that her son Evan, who attended with her, had convinced her to come.

Another big star to hit the carpet was Shah Rukh Khan, marking the first time that a male Bollywood actor had attended the gala.

The evening had its share of theatrical looks as well — musician André 3000 showed up with a grand piano strapped to his back, Janelle Monae wore a dramatic overcoat painted to look like a suit and actor Damson Idris had two attendants peel a racing outfit off of him on the carpet to reveal a brick-red suit underneath.

It wasn't all sparkles and smiles. There were some notable absences — celebrities including singers Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande weren't among the attendees, nor were Lady Gaga and Katy Perry because of their current world tours.

And fans watching the red carpet online through Vogue's livestream weren't pleased when it ended early, before any of the Kardashians, or Rihanna, had made it to the red carpet.

The theme of the gala is inspired by the annual spring exhibition, which this year is based in large part on Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, a book written by Columbia University professor Monica L. Miller which looks at the political coding of style within the Black community.

She is guest curator of the exhibit, which opens to the public on Saturday.

"Historical manifestations of dandyism range from absolute precision in dress and tailoring to flamboyance and fabulousness in dress and style," Miller writes in the exhibit catalog. "Whether a dandy is subtle or spectacular, we recognize and respect the deliberateness of the dress, the self-conscious display, the reach for tailored perfection, and the sometimes subversive self-expression."

It's the first Costume Institute exhibition since 2003's "Men in Skirts" to focus exclusively on menswear, and the first time that Black fashion has been the central focus.

This year's exhibit is organized into 12 sections, each symbolizing a characteristic of dandy style as defined by Zora Neale Hurston in her 1934 essay, "Characteristics of Negro Expression," including presence, distinction, disguise, freedom and heritage, among others.

Organizers also resurrected the tradition of a "host committee" this year, made up of stars in a wide range of fields, from athlete Simone Biles to filmmaker Spike Lee to author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, among numerous others.

The guest list amounted to about 450 high-profile people from technology, sports, art, entertainment and more. The mix, Williams said, is a must.

"It's so important to me to have successful Black and brown people of every stripe in the room: not just athletes and actors and actresses, entertainers, but also authors, architects, folks from the fintech world," he told Vogue. "We've got to invest in each other."

The gala had already raised a record $31 million US, Metropolitan Museum of Art CEO Max Hollein said Monday — the first time the fundraiser for the Met's Costume Institute has crossed the $30 million US mark and eclipsing last year's haul of more than $26 million US.