The Grammy-winning rapper poses with Louis Vuitton trunks, towel and tennis racket, echoing André Leon Talley’s famed hotel snapshot.
On the first Monday in May, New York settles into its Met Gala 2025 rhythm. Amid that buzz, Grammy-winning rapper Doechii sparked conversation with an Instagram post that tips a hat to the late André Leon Talley.
In the image, Doechii kicks her leg skyward and laughs mid-pose. She wears a red-and-white Louis Vuitton tracksuit, a navy monogram towel draped at the neck, and three pieces of the house’s hard-sided luggage. A tennis racket, sheathed in LV canvas, completes the scene.
The composition mirrors Talley’s famous hotel-door departure, trunks swinging, racket on display. Doechii even reproduces his open-mouthed grin. Her caption reads “ready?” and with that single word the first-time Met guest places herself beside a figure who championed fashion spectacle and Black expression.
This year’s Costume Institute exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” takes its cue from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 study of Black dandyism. Talley stands tall in that lineage, so Doechii’s homage feels like pre-show scholarship as much as style flex.
Stylist Sam Woolf—who often dresses the rapper in Thom Browne—keeps the final look under wraps. The luggage hints that Louis Vuitton may play a part, yet the teasing image works less as a spoiler than as a love letter to Talley and a reminder that references matter on the Met stairs.
