How Bianca Saunders Prepped Nick Jonas & Stefon Diggs for the 2025 Met Gala
"Most important: A stylish person never leaves the house without a good attitude," says Nick Jonas. "It's a big, long night. Don't leave your house if you have a bad attitude."
It's the weekend before the 2025 Met Gala and Jonas is in fittings with Bianca Saunders, the award-winning British-Jamaican designer whose signature take on menswear is shaken, not stirred.
The two tailored outfits that Saunders has created for Jonas — a green peak-lapel pinstripe suit and a two-piece monochrome set with a dramatic boy scout-ish neckerchief — are an effective mission statement for her work at large. A little rakish, very refined, and obviously rooted in masculine codes, though not so brusque as to cater to gendered dressing norms. That's the Bianca Saunders way.
Saunders cites the late great André Leon Talley as an influence for Jonas' snappy green suit, which is appropriate given the influence of Black dandyism on "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style," the 2025 Met Gala theme.
"I wanted to create raw fluidity in [Jonas'] tailoring," she explains. Other influences include some of Jonas' prior Met Gala looks — his 2019 Met Gala bling was key — and even some local references. This shindig is in New York, after all.
"[I was] looking at the renaissance era of Harlem and how the suits are really made," says Saunders. "So, the pinstripe was very much essential. I wanted to give the soft side of him, and also have an hard edge in terms of the sharp shoulder details."
"The use of color, the green, is really striking. And the yellow tie, it brings me back to my youth, getting dressed up for church on Sunday," adds Jonas. "I've always tried to focus on classic silhouettes and things that will never go out of style."
The beauty of Saunders' oeuvre is that it's that and then some. She not merely playing the hits but updating them personal touches, like an old jazz hand tackling the standards.
Though Saunders dressed USHER for the 2023 Met Gala, she considers the 2025 edition more of a proper introduction.
"I'm sure there are people that might not have heard about the brand," she says, "Though I want the people that know the brand very well to spot it on the red carpet and immediately be like, 'That's a BS look.'"
Also clad in a BS look for the 2025 Met Gala was Stefon Diggs, Patriots wide receiver, who had his final fitting with Saunders a day later.
Wearing an asymmetric double-breasted blazer, elegant heeled shoes, and a black turtleneck, Diggs was most notably ensconced in a shroud of animalistic "fur," a wild outfit inspired by the king of soul.
"We wanted to make him feel like James Brown, very much powerful, in charge, the modern dandy," she says. We have an exaggerated coat with a slit detail, so like a cape. It's a little bit of performance on the red carpet."
Power dressing. But important that it's the only powerful factor at play. One final word of wisdom from Jonas before we step out: Fresh breath is just as critical as fresh threads.
"Mints are important," he says. "A lot of close talking at these events."
