Photographed by Ruth Ginika Ossai
While all eyes—and more than a few camera crews—are fixed on the Met Gala’s iconic red carpet, (which was blue and daffodil-strewn this year), only a select few lenses are permitted past the threshold of the museum’s Great Hall. This year, one of those rarefied lenses belonged to photographer Ruth Ginika Ossai, who was invited to create a special series of portraits taken inside the museum itself.
Known for her vivid, textured images that celebrate Black identity, beauty, and power, Ossai brought her signature visual vocabulary to fashion’s most exclusive night. Raised in Eastern Nigeria and now based in West Yorkshire, England, the artist calls herself an Igbo/Yorkshire warrior—a title that speaks to her dual heritage and the proud, defiant clarity of her work. Indeed, her portraits are unmistakable: characterized by saturated backdrops, tactile surfaces, and a deep reverence for Nigerian studio photography traditions that elevate her sitters to mythic status.
Though there is splendor in every corner of the Met, Ossai brought in a few of her own touches—props and painted sets that conjure a slightly surreal, theatrical feeling. Think 1970s faux-vinyl floor tiles, or sylvan backdrops worthy of a midnight fairytale. Her staging reframes the museum as not a monument, but a set—a living space in which to perform one’s most cinematic self.
As guests like Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, and Angela Bassett entered the museum, they were asked if they’d like to momentarily slip away from the festivities to sit for Ossai. Most didn’t need convincing—they were already familiar with her work and eager to create something intimate and dreamlike amidst the grandeur of the night.
She captured the likes of Rihanna—her new baby bump proudly revealed for the first time—and Met Gala co-chair A$AP Rocky in front of a painted version of the Met’s Beaux-Arts façade. Lewis Hamilton, another co-chair, struck a heroic pose in an enchanted forest-like scene cast in twilight tones. Zendaya, never one to miss a visual cue, served high swagger with a tilted head and locked gaze, standing alongside her longtime stylist and image architect, Law Roach.
“It’s important for people to tell their own stories,” Ossai has said. “When it doesn’t happen that way, the narrative too often becomes incomplete or stereotyped.” In this series, she offers a new kind of Met Gala memory—one built not on spectacle alone, but on presence, play, and personal mythology as well.
