Nicholas Daley’s Met Gala Look for Leon Bridges Is All About Deep Cuts
London-based designer Nicholas Daley is unmistakable as he arrives at The Manner in SoHo dressed in warm tones and an oversized patchwork baker boy hat that nods unmistakably to the ’70s. He’s there to meet Grammy-award-winning singer/songwriter Leon Bridges, whom he’s dressing for this year’s Met Gala. When Bridges arrives in bootcut flares, a babushka, and shield shades, their synergy is obvious. Both men are preoccupied with time, albeit in their own ways.
“I look a lot at different vintage archive styles,” Daley explains of his design process. “Even making the suit for Leon is looking at ’70s crocheted hand-knitted ties and western shirts and looking at the real fits of the ’70s with some of the tailoring. Like the wide-peak lapel, the flares, the cover buttons, all these details.” The attention to detail extends to the hotel room, which seems plucked from a Blaxploitation film with its emerald velvets, marble, and mirrored walls abutting cherry-wood paneling. Rows of rings, leather gloves (a specific request of Bridges’), cufflinks, and gems sit like a box of chocolates on a lacquered credenza, while more styling pulls drape the bed. Even the playlist is catered to Bridges, so much so he asks whether it is his (it isn’t).
If you ask Bridges, this year’s theme — Superfine: Tailoring Black Style — couldn’t have been done without Daley. His accolades include British Fashion Council/GQ Designer Fashion Fund winner and LVMH Prize finalist, and later this month, the Pratt Institute will honor him with a Visionary Award. Adidas, Carhartt Work in Progress, and Fred Perry are all collaborators. And for the first time in his 10-year career, Daley’s work will be featured in a section of this year’s Costume Institute exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
While this will be Bridges’ fifth time attending the gala, it’s Daley’s first time dressing a star for the red carpet. But the fifth time’s the charm, it seems. “This is my fave Met look, easy,” Bridges says once in the complete ensemble, a three-piece suit with an overcoat, all in a pinstripe wool. It includes a first for Daley: a flared pant. His designs typically reference the Zoot Suit, with wide-legged trousers cuffed tightly at the ankle. Van Morrison’s “Days Like This” aptly plays as Bridges two-steps to show off the suit’s movement.
At one point, there’s a choice between two accessories: a printed silk scarf inspired by Malian Bògòlanfini, or “mud cloth,” and a knit tie made by Daley’s mother (his grandmother and great-grandmother were also knitters). Bridges’ choice is quick. “It’d be rad to wear mum’s.” On the fly, Daley decides to cut the scarf into a pocket square, turning the hotel room into an atelier, all while giving a spiel on musicians of yore who’d wear cheap three-piece suits, the one significant, branded item being the square or scarf tucked into a pocket.
Bridges and Daley met shooting the cover of Clash Magazine last year. Bridges was especially taken with a tracksuit Daley styled him in for the shoot (“I’m always looking for the perfect casual, one-piece joint”) and still wishes he could’ve kept it. Their connection has lasted ever since. During initial conversations about what he’d wear to the Met, Bridges put together a mood board of images to use as references for his look. And as it turned out, Daley had already pulled many of the same photos on his own.
Bridges describes one, a photo of James Baldwin wearing a silk cravat and a wide-lapel tweed jacket. To Bridges, Baldwin typifies the complete package of the artist: someone who values the presentation just as much as the work. “Style and music have to go hand-in-hand,” he says. “It would be kind of heartbreaking to see somebody who makes great music, but they’re on stage with a shitty outfit.”
And it’s not just about aesthetics. “The way we put on clothes — that’s storytelling,” Bridges says.
Which means that Black dandies tell their own deliberate tale. “It’s like an attitude, really,” Daley says. He points to one in particular: his grandfather, whose legacy continued through Daley’s father, a one time employee at British menswear label Burton. Daley carries this thread across the pond to the American South, pointing to traditions of churchgoing and Sunday best. “I think it’s just layers and layers and layers of things we were exposed to growing up, whether it’s uncles, dads, our friends, the community using style and sartorialism.”
“What urged my granddad, 80 years ago, to decide to make shoes?” Daley asks. “I think all of that comes from an innate feeling of creation, but also rebellion and appreciation and craft.”
Bridges interjects. “Dandy is like, we’re kind of anomalies.”
We step onto the balcony at Bridges’ behest for the last few minutes of the fitting, and the two fall into a comfortable back-and-forth. Both men conjure the past with respect but don’t take it as sacrosanct, imbuing it with contemporary sensibilities in an effort to push conversations forward. Daley points to Kendrick Lamar for Chanel and Pharrell at Louis Vuitton as “breaking down codes.”
“However you look at it, whether you like it or not, if it’s something new, that’s progression,” he says.
He also points to Abin Martin and Grace Wales Bonner, Bianca Saunders, Priya Alawiah, and the list goes on. “It’s amazing to see my sisters also in the context of menswear,” Daley says. “These are all my peers, strong Black women doing really interesting stuff.”
Many of these women will also appear at the Met in some form or another. Wales Bonner is on the host committee, and Saunders is dressing singer Nick Jonas and Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs in her signature cuts and surprising details. For Daley, though, Bridges was it. “I kind of feed off seeing my clothes being worn by the right people,” he says — “people who I respect and admire for their own artistry.”
