The Brooklyn Designers, Brands, and Artists at The 2025 Met Gala

By Michael Gonik

The 2025 Met Gala may have come and gone, but for those of us who use the annual benefit as a discovery platform for innovators in fashion, the best part is arguably just beginning. To aid your research, we did a little digging only to learn many of the evening’s most discussed red carpet moments were helmed by a Brooklyn-born or based designer, stylist, or brand. What’s more, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the Met Fifth Avenue exhibit accompanying this year’s Gala theme, will also feature contributions from some of the borough’s own.

Put some faces to your favorite Met Gala 2025 fits below. “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” opens in Gallery 999 at the Met Fifth Avenue on May 10, 2025. Get the details on the exhibit here.

Christopher John Rogers

Ever since his New York Fashion Week debut in 2018 at the age of 23, Christopher John Rogers has been a vibrant force of color and form in fashion. His label has provided looks for stars of all magnitudes and disciplines, including Doechii, Charli XCX, Kerry Washington, Rihanna, Ayo Edebiri, and countless others. At the 2025 Met Gala, Rogers was the hand behind Cole Escola’s radiant custom retro daisy satin combo and Ego Nwodim’s ruffled peplum suit.

Burkindy

Originally from Burkina Faso, jewelry designer Burkindy imparts his West African roots into each piece of bent brass, silver, and gold he handles. This year, the Crown Heights-based designer (with a showroom on Franklin Avenue) supplied Questlove with some custom pieces to accompany Ferragamo shoes and the 30,000 freshwater pearls pin-striping the drummer’s suit on the red carpet.

Bernard James

Bernard James is another jewelry designer who managed to amplify, but not outshine, the 40 pounds of pearls on Questlove’s custom Gabriela Hearst suit. Known for sleek and subtle silhouettes, the Greenpoint jeweler also provided some precious stones and metals for Lorde (wearing spectrum diamond hoops and a pair of rings as hair accessories), and model Anok Yai (who wore a custom necklace with 18k white gold and natural diamonds, three-tier diamond drop earrings, and a diamond bracelet inspired by a pocket watch).

Lionel Nichols

While his Mario and Lee label wasn’t tapped for any pieces in this year’s show, tailor and designer Lionel Nichols was nonetheless quite present at the 2025 Met Gala. The Brooklyn born, raised, and based designer worked with Balmain and Olivier Rousteing to tailor pieces for Jeremy O. Harris, Rosalia, Priyanka Chopra, and the legendary Diana Ross, who debuted at last night’s event a stunningly elegant 18-foot train Nichols worked on in 2024.

Jacques Agbobly

Knitwear pioneer and 2024 LVMH Prize semi-finalist Jacques Agbobly has yet to make their Met Gala debut. But Agbobly, who plays with color, fabric, and shape like few others (just glance the sweater they’re wearing above), will be featured in the Met Fifth Avenue’s accompanying exhibit for “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” The young designer who grew up in Togo studying local seamstresses and tailors, is now a Brooklyn resident, and they’ve contributed two suits—a brilliantly bright piece inspired by the bags they’d see worn in Togo and a denim ensemble studded with crystals and beads—to the exhibit, which opens its doors on May 10.

Tanda Francis

Though she didn’t design any pieces for the red carpet, artist Tanda Francis did walk it last night. Francis, whose monumentally  large and affecting sculptures have been displayed all over the city, provided The Met with a pair of bespoke mannequin heads that will be featured at the Fifth Avenue exhibit. According to a press release, one of the heads contains a plurality of profiles and is inspired by the fictional Congolese revolutionary André Grenard Matswa.