Kendall Jenner’s Met Gala 2025 look honoured a famous LGBTQ+ figure from history
Kendall Jenner honoured Gladys Bentley at the 2025 Met Gala. (Taylor Hill/Soibelman Syndicate Collection/Getty Images)
Kendall Jenner honoured Gladys Bentley at the 2025 Met Gala. (Taylor Hill/Soibelman Syndicate Collection/Getty Images)
Stepping out on the Met Gala‘s floral blue carpet, Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Kendall Jenner channelled a famous queer figure from LGBTQ+ history with her tailored look.
Jenner is no stranger to the star-studded event; this is her eleventh Met, and once again she was playing with the dress code, this time ‘Tailored for You’.
The 2025 Met Gala (5 May) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City saw Jenner in a minimal but poignant interpretation of the ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ theme. This Met Gala’s co-chairs included Emmy award-winner Colman Domingo, Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton, rapper A$AP Rocky, musician and producer Pharrell Williams, and revered Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
British designer Torishéju Dumi styled the 29-year-old model and socialite, who wore a custom grey Torishéju skirt suit with a plunging neckline and structured shoulders. Suit trousers were swapped for a floor-length skirt.
The look was completed with a layered Chopard diamond necklace and matching earrings.
In a statement about Jenner’s look, Dumi shared: “This look is deeply personal to me, as it expresses the versatility of Black Dandyism and tailoring and what it means to a Black British woman.
“It challenges preconceived notions of how one should dress or design based on their gender, race or background.”
Jenner’s look was specifically inspired by queer nightclub performer Gladys Bentley, a 1920s Harlem Renaissance woman, blues singer, and pianist.
Speaking about her inspiration, Dumi told Vogue: “(Gladys Bentley) had a really strong sense of self. Being a woman and taking tailoring—something that many people just perceive to be a menswear aesthetic, she turned it into her own and she dressed it up, took it apart, and made it something that really resonated with her own style, her music, everything.”
Who was Gladys Bentley, and why is she so important to the queer community?
Bentley performed at New York City’s gay clubs in the 1930s: a Black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer who was sometimes accompanied by a chorus line of drag queens.
She was considered a female dandy. This is a woman who passionately dedicated herself to leisure and style, challenging stereotypes of race, class, gender, and nationality. She was often pictured in her iconic white three-piece suit with a top hat and cane.
With her suits, raunchy songs and flirty behaviour with women in the audience, Bentley playfully defied gender normative behaviours and femininity. She was known for putting a promiscuous spin on popular songs, and sang about her same-sex lovers in innuendo-laden tracks.
Bentley’s menswear history inspired Dumi to create Jenner’s Met Gala look. She stated that she wanted to take Bentley’s approach to tailoring with a bold personality, an elongated torso and a nipped waistcoat.
Though Bentley’s style can be celebrated today, at the time she was bullied for donning suits; her family even sent her to psychiatrists to try and “fix” her queer desires.
As Bentley grew older, her career didn’t match the success of her early days in the 20s and 30s. McCarthy Era America didn’t welcome her as an openly lesbian woman wearing men’s clothes. However, she was still billed as “America’s Greatest Sepia Piano Player”.
Bentley is remembered as an important voice in the LGBTQ+ community for her defiant style and as a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance.
To see our roundup of Met Gala fashion hits and misses, click here.
