Hanging With Future, Jeremy Allen White, and More in Louis Vuitton’s Met Gala 2025 Suite

A few hours before the Met Gala 2025, Louis Vuitton’s suite at the Mark Hotel is in a state that can only be described as highly controlled chaos. Pharrell Williams, the house’s men’s creative director since 2023, is co-chairing this year’s event, celebrating the Met Costume Institute’s Spring 2025 exhibition, entitled “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” It’s the first exhibition centering Black style and designers, and the first in 20 years that’s focused on menswear, making Williams—whose contributions across music, fashion, and popular culture span over three decades—the ideal man for the job. The designs of his Louis Vuitton predecessor, Virgil Abloh, play a large part in the exhibition, celebrating his profound cultural influence and his work as the first Black American to helm a French luxury house.

Pharrell dressed over a dozen people for tonight’s Met Gala red carpet, many of whom passed through the suite—decked out with trunks, books, artwork, collectibles, and ephemera covered in the signature LV monogram—to get their photos taken in a fully functional content studio built out for the evening. To a soundtrack of Skepta, Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse, and Lauryn Hill, a mix of his longtime friends and collaborators (Pusha T, Future, Henry Taylor) and icons of the new generation (Sabrina Carpenter, Lisa, Doechii) filed in and out ahead of their red carpet departures.

In one sweet moment—especially to me, a Virginia Beach native—Pharrell came to check out Pusha’s full ‘fit and give him a round of applause, before getting out of his jeans and pink polo to put on his own look, comprised of a cropped jacket hand-crafted entirely from white pearls.

Malcolm Washington, a Met newbie, was honored to wear a classic Pharrell Williams silhouette for his first time: a double-breasted smoking jacket and flared trousers. “This is such a cool Met to come to, the reason we’re here is so exciting and it’s been personal in my life in a way, so it’s cool to come celebrate Black dandyism.” The director is a longtime fan of fashion, and loves self-expression through all artistic practices. (Washington comes from an art-forward family: His dad, of course, is Denzel.) “My grandfather was the principal of a Black high school. When schools were integrated in the ’60s, he lost his position, but still within it he found so much dignity in how he dressed,” he says. “I always thought that was such a beautiful way to express [that] in how you carry yourself, and to now be here, and get to wear a classic tuxedo by a Black man at an event such as this celebrating that, felt like a wonderful full-circle moment.”

Jeremy Allen White’s another of the LV crew’s Met rookies. “I feel nervous, excited, but good. I feel like I look nice,” he says with a smile. As for his look? “For a couple of months we’ve been piecing it together,” he says, looking over at his stylist Jamie Mizrahi. “We had a lot of reference photos, the pinstripes were something that we found pretty early on in the fabrics, and the suit just got snugger and snugger and sharper and sharper as we went. We wanted to do something kind of period, but also timeless, and just make sure that the tailoring itself was very elegant and angular.”

Despite having many friends who have attended the Met, White’s going in cold. “I don’t know what happens in that room, nobody does, I guess, if you haven’t been before, but I am excited to see,” he says. He’s heard about the famous smoking section, where all of the fun allegedly happens. “Well, that’s where I’ll be most of the night,” he deadpans. “I think I might be there the whole time, just kinda hiding.”