The Met Gala is four days away and ASAP Rocky still has no idea what he is wearing. He, Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, and Coleman Domingo are co-chairs for the annual event that takes place on Monday (May 5). This year’s theme is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” and will pay homage to 300 years of men’s complicated fashion and cultural significance. It is inspired by Columbia University professor Monica L. Miller's 2009 book, "Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity."
Rocky has a reputation for rocking divine threads and tailor-made ‘fits, which makes it easy to assume he is immune from wardrobe blunders even if he waits till the last minute to make selections. The "D.M.B." artist previously attended the Met in 2014, 2017, 2021, and 2023, for the latter two red carpet appearances his better half, Rihanna, was by his side, dazzling in her couture costumes. As for his 2025 look, he told “The Run-Through with VOGUE” podcast on Thursday (May 1), “I got an idea of something but nah, nah… It’s not that easy… getting dressed every time. You need options, and usually, the outfit picks you.”
ASAP Rocky was a fashion killa long before his global fame
“See, I grew up like preparing my clothes the night before and I remember, like, growing up around Easter or Christmas, and your birthday you get like a new outfit. The whole day you just waiting. You know, you just got it in your head, ready for the next morning. You lose sleep over that. I was tired of putting myself through that torment, so I made a decision in my late teens to stop preparing and then I woke up every day letting fashion choose me… Fashion is a statement and depending on how you feel that day, [it] reflects your outfit,” the Highest 2 Lowest breakout star explained.
Harlem: The mecca of Dandyism is woven in ASAP Rocky’s DNA — it's no surprise he has natural drip
The actor, rapper, fashion designer and icon is apparently a historian, too. The ego that he and other Harlem natives rep as the world’s best-dressed comes natural to them for a reason.
“Harlem essentially was like Seneca Village, which we all know now today is Central Park… Around that time, I would say our country was just going through its adversity and diversity and just challenges and stuff, you know, a lot of Black people didn’t have a lot of rights... We created our own neighborhood," recalled Rocky about the area Black landowners settled in during the early 18th century. Residents were forcefully displaced in the late 1850s in order to construct the park.
"The significance of Seneca Village was that everybody who lived in it was wealthy. So, it was wealthy Black people. Now, that’s where that ghetto fabulous, I guess, personality, I guess, style, and culture [came from]," he continued.
Moreover, the hitmaker noted that "it was really derived from everybody who left Seneca Village and went to Harlem… It was ironic that those people were considered, you know, to be living in the ghetto. So, after generations and generations of that, you got these guys who think they're the s**t, like myself, if you get what I’m saying. In all fairness, we are."
His fashion risks should make men feel emboldened to step out of their own comfort zones
“I do what the f**k I want… I wanna be a catalyst for daring men. I don’t know who drew the line between like femininity or just being feminine and masculinity…but I don’t see any barriers. For me, it’s not fair that like my girl could just go in my closet and just take anything from it and wear it. That goes both ways. She has pieces that she doesn’t know that I actually stole [from her],” he boasted.
Oh, and those ensembles that turned heads? Like, the kilts and babushkas that Rocky has worn, they are not quite as bold of fashion choices that some make them out to be. According to the trendsetter, he is simply revisiting the past. “All of that stuff, that’s what the Moors wore,” he told the podcast hosts. He also noted, “If you know anything about the Moors with the pearls and stuff like that… These are all things meant to be like emasculated and meant to look feminine, and they all started out with African men wearing them.”