Colman Domingo Channeled Jean-Michel Basquiat With His Met Gala Look

Reported by Harper's Bazaar.

Colman Domingo has made a habit of treating the Met Gala like a personal art installation, and this year he went fully conceptual. For fashion's biggest night, the actor partnered with Valentino to build a look rooted in Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting Pez Dispenser — specifically its T. rex, whose color palette became the DNA of Domingo's checkered jacket. The reference wasn't decorative; it was deliberate, the kind of fashion move that rewards people who actually know what they're looking at.

The details pushed the concept further. According to Harper's Bazaar, Domingo topped the look with pieces from Boucheron's Serpent Bohème Gold & Onyx collection — a nod to the crown sitting atop Basquiat's dinosaur — and became the first person to wear the collection on a red carpet. Boucheron creative director Claire Choisne called the moment "a true source of pride," adding that Domingo's singular style reflects a spirit where "allure becomes an expression, a statement" and the collection's duality of light and shadow finds its fullest meaning.

After Midnight

This is Domingo's third Met Gala and his second consecutive year working with Valentino — last year he co-chaired the event in an electric blue cape that still lives rent-free in the fashion internet's memory. This year's checkered jacket is a different energy: more studied, more layered, less spectacle for spectacle's sake. He got ready at the Mark Hotel, which, if you know anything about Met Gala logistics, is basically the backstage of the whole production.

For the after-party circuit, he pivoted to an all-black Campillo suit with a cinched silver belt — the Boucheron jewels staying on as the throughline between looks. It's a smart move aesthetically and practically: when you're the first to wear a debut collection, you keep it on.

When fashion is functioning at its best, it argues for something — and Domingo's Met Gala moment argued that art history is always available to anyone bold enough to wear it.

Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.