My (Almost) Time at the Met Gala 2025
Why you gaggin'? He brings it to you every Ball
It was a dream that was (almost) fulfilled, something 16 years in the making..
After encountering Billy Porter (the one and only!) at The Little Gay Pub June 2024 and showing
him my outfits, to his delight, and after getting barraged by friends' posts and DMs telling me, excitedly, about the theme of the 2025
Met Gala being Superfine: Celebrating Black Style, with a very heavy emphasis on Black Dandyism, I knew that God/Universe/Whoever/Whatever manifested this for me to go to attend the Met Gala in 2025.
My best friends did everything in their power, and their fashion connections, to secure me an invitation. It was a daunting task. I didn't have the money to pay my bills, much less go
to New York to attend the Met, much less the Met Gala, but my supporters on Threads rallied together and
flooded my GoFundMe and Venmo (@phil-powell-1) with donations to allow me to, first and foremost, pay my bills, then to have the money for transportation, hotel, and a ticket to enter the Met to see the exhibit.
I got to New York that Saturday, settled in, transformed into Dandy, then got to the Met.. only to find
that the Superfine exhibit doesn't debut until the day of the Met Gala, which was Monday, May 5, the day that I had originally wanted to go but couldn't (my best friends did everything they could, so I refuse to blame them; I'm honestly grateful that I have friends who will roll up their sequined sleeves to help me). Here I was, being the Exhibit Preview (the unwitting version) at the Met.
Outfit #1, Saturday day outfit at the Met:
Click here to see the outfit
I didn't see Billy Porter, Coleman Domingo, Anna Wintour, not even Kamala Harris; I only saw a bunch of bewildered and confused tourists.
I made my way back to the hotel, un-geished, went to go out to eat, returned, took a nap, and then decided that since the Met wasn't showing the exhibit, and the fact that it closes at 9pm
on Saturdays, that it would be to my best interest to show off my evening look in my old stomping grounds: Greenwich Village, where I spent a lot of happy/sad/ridiculous/amazing moments in
my younger gay life. I transformed into Dandy once more, then made my way to Julius' Bar at one of my best
friends' suggestions (he used to work there as a bartender).
Outfit #2, Saturday/Sunday evening outfit at Julius' and the Village:
Click here to see the outfit
It was a whirlwind adventure that didn't wind up as I had originally imagined, but I had to be in New York for this moment. The moment was about Black Dandyism. I am a Black Dandy. I
had to be there. I was sort of there. In the end I needed to represent, to be seen in my art, and I needed to live out my
determination, and that of my friends and supporters, to represent and be seen in my art, from steampunk festivals to queer lewk parties to the Met Gala.
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