I Tried to Go to Every Single 2025 Met Gala After-Party

Vogue

06-05-2025

You may have read this story before—the one where a Vogue writer (me) tries to go to every single Met Gala after-party. That's because I've now written it four different times over four different years: In 2022, my then-boss Chioma Nnadi—now the head of editorial content at British Vogue—came up with assignment after she heard of all the post-Met events following 'In America: An Anthology of Fashion.' The number struck her as absurd. Would I want to try to go to them all and write a story about it? I did—it's since become an annual tradition.
Little did Chioma (and I) realize that five was celebratory child's play. This year, the 2025 Met Gala had 17—yes, 17—after-parties associated with it: a de facto social odyssey only five short of Homer's 24-book epic. ('You're fucking with me,' I told Lilah Ramzi, Vogue's parties editor, when she added the eleventh Met Gala after-party to my list: Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz's late-night rollerblade disco at Xanadu Roller Arts in Brooklyn. Lilah assured me she was not. Then she started a new row on our shared Excel Document for a 12th—A$AP Rocky at Jean's. That number kept creeping up until 5:49pm on May 4, when she added the final and 17th entry: Janelle Monae and Doechii at the Public Hotel.)
At 10:30pm the next night, just as Stevie Wonder took to the stage to perform at the 2025 Met Gala, I set off into the night with an $150 Emilia Wickstead gown from The RealReal, a Duane Reade umbrella, and a dream of making it to every single Met Gala after-party. I'll spoil the ending now: I didn't. But like Homer, it was quite the journey trying.
Party One: Willy Chavaria and Don Julio At The Mark Hotel
I get to The Mark Hotel, where Willy Chavaria is hosting an after-party with Don Julio, at 10:30 p.m. There are no celebrities here yet—they're still at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, listening to Stevie—but this party is packed. The Mark is a famous getting ready location for celebrities during the Met Gala. Now that they're out the door, all the stylists, agents, makeup artists, assistants, and hairdressers that put together their looks are finally off the clock. And they're ready to drink.
The main topic of conversation? Not this event, but the next one. 'I think I'll go to GQ and then Pharrell's,' one stylist says to another. 'Do we think A$AP Rocky is worth going to?' He asks back.