The Ones to Watch: Black Designers We Hope to See on the Met Steps Tonight
20 Black Designers Who Deserve the Spotlight at The 2025 Met Gala
The 2025 Met Gala is just one sleep away (I said to myself last night) — and this year’s theme may be one of the most powerful yet. “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” is a celebration of precision, presence, and the centuries-long legacy of Black men redefining fashion through tailoring. Inspired by Monica L. Miller’s seminal book Slaves to Fashion, the accompanying Costume Institute exhibit explores how Black men (and by extension, Black communities) have used dress as a form of identity, resistance, and excellence.
But beyond the archival and historic, what about the designers shaping this narrative today?
Here are 20 Black designers I hope to see represented on the red carpet — whether dressing celebrities, making a statement themselves, or simply receiving the recognition they deserve. From rising stars to industry legends, these names reflect the global spectrum of Black brilliance in fashion today.
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1. Tolu Coker
Tolu Coker is one of the most exciting young designers redefining what it means to dress with purpose. A British-Nigerian designer, illustrator, and textile artist, Coker blends heritage with innovation, crafting garments that tell stories of Black identity, gender fluidity, and self-expression. Her work is rooted in upcycling and artisanal techniques, often reworking tailoring staples through a deeply personal and cultural lens.
Coker’s designs echo the very essence of dandyism: intentional, layered, and rich with meaning. Through her work, she’s building an archive of Black style, memory, and resistance. As a relative newcomer, she’s already making waves across fashion weeks, and I’d love to see her brilliance light up the Met steps.
2. Ozwald Boeteng
Ozwald Boeteng is more than a designer. He’s a legend of modern menswear and a pioneer who brought new life to Savile Row. Born to Ghanaian parents in London, Boeteng redefined British tailoring by infusing traditional craftsmanship with bold color, rich African heritage, and contemporary edge. His signature style (razor-sharp cuts, vibrant linings, and global elegance) reshaped what it meant to dress like a gentleman.
As the first Black designer to open a Savile Row storefront, Boeteng’s impact is woven into the very DNA of this year’s Met Gala theme. His legacy laid the groundwork for how Black men’s fashion is seen today: refined, empowered, and unapologetically stylish.
3. Ib Kamara — Off-White
Ib Kamara is a visionary stylist and creative force born in Sierra Leone and based in London. Since 2021, he has served as the creative director of Off-White, stepping into the role after the passing of Virgil Abloh. Kamara’s work defies boundaries —spanning styling, design, photography, film, and editorial storytelling. Known for his bold, Afrofuturist lens and deep connection to diaspora narratives, Kamara blends fantasy with fearless innovation, crafting images and garments that reimagine identity, gender, and Black expression for a new generation.
4. Adebayo Oke-Lawal — Orange Culture Nigeria
Adebayo Oke-Lawal is the visionary behind Orange Culture, a Nigerian brand that blurs gender lines and challenges conventional menswear with rich color, fluid silhouettes, and deeply personal narratives. His work is activism, redefining masculinity in African style, and making bold, vulnerable expression its own kind of tailoring.
5. Duro Olowu
Duro Olowu is a Nigerian-British designer celebrated for his masterful use of prints and textiles. Known for his artful layering and vibrant palettes, Olowu’s work has long exemplified global sophistication. His designs are a study in elegance and heritage. They’re perfectly aligned with the Met’s 2025 focus on tailoring and cultural identity.
6. Niyi Okuboyejo — Post-Imperial
Led by designer Niyi Okuboyejo, Post-Imperial is a New York-based menswear brand with Nigerian roots. The label reinterprets traditional Yoruba dyeing techniques, like adire, through contemporary cuts and streetwear sensibility. Each piece bridges the past and present, stitching West African heritage into every lapel.
7. Dapper Dan
Harlem’s original couturier of street style, Dapper Dan turned designer logos into cultural statements. In the ’80s and ’90s, his custom pieces, crafted from Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Fendi prints, outfitted rap royalty and hustlers like Jay Z, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Nas, and A$AP Rocky. He made luxury accessible to the Black community long before fashion houses acknowledged their influence. His work redefined what high fashion could look like when filtered through Harlem's lens. No Met Gala honoring Black menswear would be complete without his presence.
8. Maximilian Davis — Ferragamo
As the current creative director of Ferragamo, Maximilian Davis is redefining the legacy of an Italian luxury house through a sleek, modern, and quietly powerful Black aesthetic. His Trinidadian heritage shows up in his clean silhouettes and vivid storytelling. Davis’s precision and polish embody the kind of tailored excellence this year’s theme celebrates.
9. Grace Wales Bonner
Wales Bonner’s designs are truly poetry in motion. They’re elegant, researched, and deeply rooted in diasporic identity. Her tailoring often weaves in Caribbean, African, and European references, exploring masculinity with grace. She’s the type of designer whose work doesn’t just fit the Met Gala’s theme, it elevates it.
10. Jameel Mohammed — KHIRY
Founder of Afrofuturist brand KHIRY, Jameel Mohammed transforms African diaspora culture into bold, sculptural jewelry. He was recently named Tiffany & Co.'s Designer of the Year, a major nod from the luxury establishment. If jewelry is the punctuation of a great Met Gala look, then KHIRY’s pieces are exclamation marks!
11. Jacques Agbobly — Agbobly
A rising talent, Jacques Agbobly crafts vibrant gender-expansive pieces that challenge traditional ideas of tailoring. Their work brings West African culture, Black joy, and queer expression into vivid, wearable forms. Agbobly’s fresh, colorful vision deserves the spotlight on fashion’s biggest night.
12. Bianca Saunders
This London-based menswear designer bends gender norms with subversive tailoring. Her work explores Black masculinity with a soft edge, pushing boundaries with subtle asymmetries, sculptural forms, and movement-conscious fabric choices. She’s the future of menswear, and very much the now.
13. Theophilio
Edvin Thompson’s Theophilio is a love letter to culture — Jamaican heritage, New York hustle, and Gen Z flair collide in every look. His suits are anything but traditional: neon mesh, exposed seams, and unapologetic sensuality. He’s reinventing what it means to be dressed up and I’m here for it.
14. Christopher John Rogers
Known for drama, color, and volume, Christopher John Rogers is the darling of editorial fashion. But don’t be fooled, he understands structure like no other. His tailoring is crisp, imaginative, and architectural, making him a perfect match for a theme honoring sartorial excellence.
15. Sergio Hudson
Few designers dress power like Sergio Hudson. The man behind Michelle Obama’s unforgettable Inauguration Day look is known for bold shoulders, cinched waists, and striking silhouettes. His suits and gowns command attention, exuding polish and purpose.
16. Thebe Magugu
South African designer Thebe Magugu blends fashion with storytelling, culture, and critique. His suiting is sharp, symbolic, and deeply personal, often embedding messages and historical motifs into his collections. His take on this year’s theme would no doubt be equal parts intelligent and iconic.
17. Fe Noel
Grenadian-American designer Fe Noel is known for her unapologetically feminine, Caribbean-infused designs that celebrate womanhood, heritage, and elegance. Her silhouettes float and flow, yet command space — always infused with storytelling, intention, and vibrancy. From structured suiting to flowing gowns, her pieces feel like poetry. A perfect fit for the theme, her work channels the grace and drama of Black tailoring through a uniquely diasporic lens. I’d love to see her debut a custom look on the Met steps this year.
18. LaQuan Smith
A hometown hero from Queens, New York, LaQuan Smith has become synonymous with modern glamour and power dressing. Known for his figure-sculpting silhouettes, sharp tailoring, and unapologetic sensuality, his designs have graced everyone from Beyoncé to Rihanna. While his signature look leans femme-fatale, his recent collections have introduced sharp suiting and sleek menswear moments that feel right at home in the Superfine universe. If anyone knows how to serve tailoring with heat, it’s LaQuan.
19. Patrick Kelly
Though he passed in 1990, Patrick Kelly’s influence is eternal. The Mississippi-born designer made history as the first American admitted to the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter in Paris. His designs were joyful, political, and unapologetically Black —buttons, bows, and all. A Met Gala homage to tailoring and Black style would be richer with a tribute to Kelly’s trailblazing legacy.
20. Honorary Mention — By my mom
Custom. Intentional. Romantic. Eccentric. Precise. A designer whose work speaks for itself. For more on this designer, message us directly!
This past week, we counted down to the Met Gala with a series of stories unpacking the theme Superfine: Tailoring Black Style — from Harlem dandyism to West African elegance and Congo’s La SAPE. Through it all, one truth stood out: Black designers have long been cultural architects, turning fabric into force and fashion into legacy.
From Savile Row to Lagos, from Brooklyn ateliers to global runways, these designers are shaping fashion’s future while honoring its past. Whether they step onto the Met steps this year or not, their work already lives in the lexicon of style.
I’ll be watching. I’ll be cheering. And I’ll be taking notes.
✨ Who do you hope to see on the Met Gala carpet this year? Comment a designer we should have our eyes on!
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