The 2025 Met Gala Spotlights 250 Years of Black Men’s Fashion History

On May 5, The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts its annual Met Gala—an enormous world-renowned fundraiser that gathers luminaries from the spheres of art, business, politics, sports, and entertainment to raise money for the museum’s Costume Institute.

Each year, guests of the Met gala adhere to a dress code that corresponds with the spring exhibition theme of the Costume Institute. This year’s theme, “Tailored for You,” invites guests to don suits and other attire that convey the artistry and craftsmanship of exquisite tailoring.

The Met gala’s “Tailored for You” theme is derived from the Costume Institute’s exhibit called Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, an homage to conspicuously stylish Black men from the 18th century to the present. The exhibit highlights how men of African descent throughout the Atlantic World have dressed during different periods of historical, social, and political change.

Both the Costume Institute exhibit and the Met Gala dress code arouse historical conversations about the optics of Black masculinity and specifically how Black men who lived in predominantly white environments navigated what 19th century American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois famously described as “double consciousness.” The term was Du Bois’s way of explaining what it was like to navigate the tension between one’s personal identity and the racial identity constructed for a person by external forces. Fashion is one way to understand how Black men dressed in accordance with their own aesthetic preferences, while also preparing themselves for evaluation of the Western gaze throughout history.

During the Revolutionary War, Black men’s dress reflected these tensions. At the time, Black men, both enslaved and free, petitioned colonial leaders to fight on the American side. American leaders had framed participation in the Revolution as a litmus test of masculinity, patriotism, and commitment to liberty among American men. Black men wanted their opportunity to show their valor, strength, and commitment to the colonial struggle.

Although George Washington, then Commander of the Continental Forces, eventually allowed free Black men to fight on the American side, he restricted enslaved men from enlisting as soldiers. Some enslaved men fought anyway, with no collective promise of freedom.

Washington’s initial refusal to allow enslaved men to enlist as soldiers and to negotiate military service for their freedom created an opportunity for the British. In 1775, hundreds of Black men fought on the British side of the Revolutionary War. The English referred to these Black men as the “Ethiopian Regiment,” but the group consisted of African American men who self-emancipated from colonial American plantations. They had joined the English because of a 1775 promise, Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, to free enslaved Black American men who fought for the British during the war.

However, their uniforms were not the well-documented “red coats” worn by many English soldiers. Instead, Black soldiers who fought with the British wore purple uniforms with conspicuous sashes that stated, “Liberty to Slaves.”

In this historical context, the attire worn by Black soldiers in the Ethiopian Regiment was not simply about adhering to uniform requirements. Wearing purple and the accompanying “Liberty to Slaves” sashes alongside British “red coats” against colonial regiments in blue was an aesthetic statement of bravery, and a visual testament to each man’s commitment to his individual freedom, the freedom of each man in his unit, and the emancipation of others who were enslaved.

A century later, Black men’s attire carried another powerful message. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black men enrolled at newly established Black colleges and universities. They showed a collective penchant for dressing in business attire on campus and in public spaces.

Many of the students at the first Black colleges were descendants of recently emancipated families. These first-generation Black students entered college during the “nadir of race relations,” in the years that followed Reconstruction (1865-1877), from the 1880s through the 1930s. This era had increased activity from terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan who used intimidation tactics against African Americans to repeal the effects of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Black men who exercised the right to vote—granted by the 15th Amendment—faced the risk of being harassed, beaten, and killed. Lynchings became a pervasive tactic within the South for intimidating Black men.

Against this context, Black male college students often chose to sport their “good clothes.” In the late 19th century, this included some variation of what eventually became known as white collar business attire: a jacket, waist coat, trousers, tie, and clean white shirt. Such self-presentation demonstrated individuals’ penchant for good grooming and attention to personal style. It also defied stereotypes about the inability of formerly enslaved communities to raise sons who could live and behave with comportment and polish, claims that were used to erode Black political power and rights.

Launched in 2022, designer Ralph Lauren paid homage to Black collegiate style with a collection that Lauren said was inspired by the traditions of the all-male Morehouse College. It included tailored suits, knits, and wool flannel blazers, a reference to the Morehouse tradition of giving each student a wool flannel blazer during his first few days on campus.

Throughout the 20th century, suits remained important in Black men’s style. In the 1950s and 1960s, participants in the Civil Rights movement often wore their “Sunday best”—dark suits with dark ties and white shirts—as they protested, held rallies, and articulated the tenets of the movement to news reporters at key events.

With these clothing choices, Black men of the civil rights era used aesthetics to exemplify the justice and dignity of their cause. Through their traditional attire, they were asserting that their cause aligned with America’s founding principles of justice that were reaffirmed through the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.

The end of the 20th century saw the rise of African American trends in athleisure wear and street wear—categories of dress that combine elements of athletic wear and business casual clothing. Instead of using dress as a sign of conformity and inclusion, these styles were used to demonstrate the tastes and preferences of the individual. This type of dressing incorporated myriad influences that included the world of athletics, hip hop culture, inspirations from West Africa, and dressing practices of certain African American affinity groups. Many trends associated with “off the clock” dressing became ubiquitous and mainstream. In the 1980s, athletic companies such as Nike capitalized on this by naming shoes after iconic athletes, for example, “Jordans,” for basketball legend, Michael Jordan. Nike released “Jordans” to the public in 1985, which remain an iconic component of athletic wear.

In the early 21st century, Black designer and architect Virgil Abloh found ways to fuse athletic wear and street wear with exclusive European couture designs. After years of experimenting and marketing his aesthetic vision, in 2018 Abloh became the first African American appointed menswear artistic director of the world-renowned French fashion house, Louis Vuitton.

Today, as in the past, there are a multiplicity of ways that Black men express their personal style and adorn themselves for the political, professional and social systems of the Western gaze. Many Black men have used attire as a form of activism, an aesthetic symbol of their personal aspirations to live with dignity and work towards their dreams while simultaneously uplifting others with the same aspirations.

And, especially in the current political climate, we might expect the same at this year’s Met gala as participants dress with similar goals in mind.

Camille Davis is a cultural and political historian. She is a two-time former fellow of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in Delaware, and she served as the inaugural H. Ross Perot Sr. Postdoctoral Fellow at the SMU Center for Presidential History.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.