“It was a beautiful moment,” Sergio Hudson said of his experience attending the 2025 Met Gala for “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” “I don’t know if it can ever be recreated. That’s what we all were talking about, especially the ones of us who had been to the Met before.”
Including himself, the designer created looks for 19 people for the night. A herculean task for a young label but one that Hudson saw as “spiritual” for his brand, but even more so, for himself. One major client for the night: Stevie Wonder, making his first Met Gala appearance with his wife and son.
“I was really excited to dress them, they’re family to me,” Hudson said of Stevie, his wife Tomeeka Robyn Bracy and son Kailand Morris.
For the past two years Hudson has served as sort of a creative director for Wonder. “Normally, I work with other designers, because Stevie really only likes to wear Black designers. I kind of curate his wardrobe,” Hudson said.
But when the iconic singer — who sang alongside Usher at the Met Gala — knew he was attending, his stylist Casey “Icon” Billingsley and Wonder’s team came to Hudson and asked him to step into the designer role.
“There’s a trust there that is infinite, so he just kind of let me do what I wanted,” Hudson said, adding that Wonder wanted his look to be all black “to represent my people. Not for an aesthetic, but it was more of a spiritual reason for him.”
John Imah and Sergio Hudson
Lexie Moreland/WWD
Hudson created a one-of-a-kind crystal hand-embroidered cape with a 6-foot train over an embellished tailored suit with a banded collar for Wonder. The crystal pattern came from a West African tribe that use scarification to identify themselves.
“Identification symbols for the kings of the tribe and the tribal chiefs,” he said of the detail, topping it off with a traditional West African hat. “He [Wonder] loves all that history,” Hudson said of the deep-rooted nod to ancestors.
His wife, Tomeeka Robyn Bracy, wore an off-the-shoulder gown encrusted with crystals “to accent him,” Hudson explained. Son Kailand Morris donned a double-breasted tuxedo with a hand embroidery of a Black woman on a corset belt.
“That’s what he wanted,” he said of Morris. “He’s a very creative and well-dressed man in his own right.”
They did a fitting the day before the Met, after which Wonder rehearsed for his performance. “Thankfully, I’m really good at measuring, because his suit fit him perfectly. We had to do nothing,” Hudson quipped.
Huma Abedin
Gilbert Flores/PMC
Throughout each collection Hudson has brought to the runway references to Black culture and to his family. Cab Calloway, Sammy Davis Jr., Frederick Douglass, Madam C.J. Walker — each used dress to say “this is who I am, not who you say I am. But who I am,” Hudson said, remarking that he wasn’t familiar with the term “Black dandy,” but no matter because his work has the term woven throughout. “It’s how I do my collections every season,” he said of the Met theme and his work.
Adding of creating looks for Wonder, “To be completely honest, it’s the most organic thing I’ve ever done.”
It was never his intent to dress so many people, but the designer has long relationships with private clients, many of whom were attendees.
“Take Stephanie Horton, for instance, from Google — she’s like, ‘You’re going to dress me for the Met, right?’ And I was like, ‘yes.’ And it just… the numbers kept building,” he said of the massive undertaking, including dressing Quinta Brunson, Huma Abedin, Rachel Brosnahan, a few members of the New York Liberty and more.
Quinta Brunson in Sergio Hudson.
Lexie Moreland
As for himself: a modern take on a pinstripe Zoot suit with a pink pant, tie, shirt and coat inspired by Sunday morning church services. It was his musing on “how would we dress up for Easter Sunday.”
Hudson, like many who attended, doesn’t think there will ever be a Met Gala like “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” “It was a different energy in the air. It was so relaxed, like a family reunion type of vibe inside of there.”
Taking stock on the night, he hopes the industry will finally expand its idea of what Black designers can do. “We are all things. We are not just streetwear; we have an influence on tailoring and suiting. Black people are not a monolith,” he said.
