Met Gala kicks off with Pharrell, Teyana Taylor and Lewis Hamilton. Here's how to watch

NEW YORK (AP) — Let the year's biggest fashion party begin! A rainy Met Gala got underway Monday with a tuxedoed choir and a trend true to the menswear theme: Emma Chamberlain and other women in pinstripe gowns.

Chamberlain and Zuri Hall were among those who wore sleek, sexy gowns that play on men's suiting in pinstripes and other details.

“I expect this to be a frequent thing tonight, women wanting to maintain a traditionally feminine dress silhouette while still respecting the theme,” said William Dingle, director of style for blackmenswear.com, a cultural impact agency that focuses on uplifting Black men.

The suggested dress code, "Tailored for You," is inspired by Black dandyism. Teyana Taylor went for a stunning Zoot Suit look with a red, feather-adorned top hat and a huge matching cape dripping with flowers and bling.

The Zoot was popularized in Harlem in the 1940s.

Colman Domingo, one of the evening's hosts, wore a pleated, gold adorned cape over a gray and black suit, his jacket a pearled windowpane design with a huge dotted black flower. His look, including his cape and a dotted black scarf at his neck, evoked the late André Leon Talley, the fashion icon who made history as a rare Black editor at Vogue.

Domingo arrived with Vogue’s Anna Wintour, dressed in a baby blue coat over a shimmery white gown. Fellow co-chair Lewish Hamilton donned a jaunty ivory tuxedo with a cropped jacket and matching beret.

Pharrell Williams, another co-host, was demure in a double-breasted, beaded evening jacket and dark trousers. He kept his dark shades on while posing for the cameras. Williams walked with his wife, Helen Lasichanh, in a black bodysuit and matching jacket.

Pharrell’s jacket consists of 15,000 pearls and took 400 hours to construct, his representative said.

Monica L. Miller, whose book inspired the evening, wore a bejeweled cropped cape over a dress adorned with cowrie shells by Grace Wales Bonner. It's a direct connection to a piece in the gala's companion Metropolitan Museum of Art spring exhibit that Miller guest curated.

How to watch the 2025 Met Gala

Vogue will livestream the gala starting at 6 p.m. Eastern on Vogue.com, its YouTube channel and across its other digital platforms. Teyana Taylor, La La Anthony and Ego Nwodim will host the stream. Emma Chamberlain will also do interviews on the carpet.

The Associated Press is livestreaming celebrity departures from the Mark Hotel and will stream the gala carpet on delay beginning at 6:30 p.m. The feeds will be available on YouTube and APNews.com.

E! will begin live coverage at 6 p.m. on TV. The livestream will be available on Peacock, E! Online and YouTube, along with the network's other social media feeds.

Who’s hosting the 2025 Met Gala?

This year, the fundraising gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosted by a group of Black male celebrities, including Domingo, Hamilton, Williams, who's the musical artist and Louis Vuitton menswear director, and A$AP Rocky. LeBron James, the NBA superstar, was named honorary chair but bowed out at the last minute due to a knee injury. As always, hosts are joined by Wintour, the mastermind behind the gala, considered the year's biggest and starriest party.

Also guaranteed to show up is a second tier of hosts from a variety of worlds: athletes Simone Biles and husband Jonathan Owens; Angel Reese and Sha'Carri Richardson; filmmakers Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee and Regina King; actors Ayo Edebiri, Audra McDonald and Jeremy Pope; musicians Doechii, Usher, Tyla, Janelle Monáe and André 3000; author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; artists Jordan Casteel, Rashid Johnson and Kara Walker; playwrights Jeremy O. Harris and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; and fashion figures Grace Wales Bonner, Edward Enninful, Dapper Dan and Olivier Rousteing.

The gala raises the bulk of the curation budget for the museum’s Costume Institute.

This year's Met Gala dress code is...

It's more like a firm suggestion. From Wintour. This year, it's about tailoring and suiting as interpreted through the history and meaning of Black dandyism across the Atlantic diaspora. The theme is inspired by the annual spring exhibition, which this year is based in large part on "Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity," a book written by Monica L. Miller. She is guest curator of the exhibit.

“Historical manifestations of dandyism range from absolute precision in dress and tailoring to flamboyance and fabulousness in dress and style,” Miller writes in the exhibit catalog. “Whether a dandy is subtle or spectacular, we recognize and respect the deliberateness of the dress, the self-conscious display, the reach for tailored perfection, and the sometimes subversive self-expression.”

How the dress code goes, in terms of taste and style, is anyone's guess. Wintour has a hand in virtually all things gala, so the presumption is things can't go too far-off the rails. She recently knocked down the rumor that she approves all looks, telling “Good Morning America” she'll weigh in if asked.

The exhibit, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style," draws on other sources beyond Miller's book. It's organized into 12 sections. Each symbolizes a characteristic of dandy style as defined by Zora Neale Hurston in her 1934 essay, "Characteristics of Negro Expression."

Among them: ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, respectability and heritage. Presumably, for gala guests who do deep-dive research (or have stylists to do it), some of these factors will play out on the museum steps that serve as the event's red carpet.

Who else is going to show up?

The guest list amounts to about 450 high-profile people from tech, sports, art, entertainment and more. The mix, Williams said, is a must.

“It’s so important to me to have successful Black and brown people of every stripe in the room: not just athletes and actors and actresses, entertainers, but also authors, architects, folks from the fintech world," he told Vogue. “We’ve got to invest in each other. We’ve got to connect with each other, because it’s going to take everybody to coalesce the force of Black and brown genius into one strong, reliable force.”

How much money does the Met Gala raise?

The gala had already raised a record $31 million, Metropolitan Museum of Art CEO Max Hollein said Monday — the first time the fundraiser for the Met's Costume Institute has crossed the $30 million mark and eclipsing last year's haul of more than $26 million.

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Associated Press writers Beatrice Dupuy and Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this story.

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For full coverage of the Met Gala, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/met-gala