When Myha’la was a kid, she desperately craved a pair of Timberland boots. “Anyone who was cool—every single person in hip hop—was wearing them in the early aughts,” the actor tells Vogue. Her mother, Susan, an avid thrifter, found her a secondhand pair. “They were black, so I was convinced that they were knockoffs,” she recalls with a laugh. “I said, ‘I won’t do it. I will not disrespect Timberlands like that by getting your crusty secondhand knockoffs. I will work my ass off until I get my own.’ And that day never came.”
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Lopez’s final sketch for Myha’la.Courtesy of Luar
But that day finally arrived last night at the 2025 Met Gala. The Industry breakout star hit the carpet in a pair of custom Timberlands designed by Luar’s Raul Lopez, who fashioned both of their looks for the evening. These aren’t the standard work boots Myha’la grew up coveting, though. The actor wore a pair of thigh-high lace-up Timbs in the signature wheat color, rendered in moiré.
Lopez dressed Myha’la in a century-spanning homage to Black dandyism. “I wanted to reference the ’20s and the ’60s, but more the 1520s and 1560s,” Lopez says. After the 2018 Met Gala “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” the designer began to imagine how he would have interpreted the theme, collecting imagery of Saint Maurice and Black Tudors. Now, seven years later, he’s finally able to use his research in his bespoke look for Myha’la. “I wanted her to feel like a queen of that era,” he says.
But this was no stereotypical Tudor look. Lopez brought his ideas into the present era with contemporary materials and embellishments. The gray Italian wool minidress, outfitted with zippers and a diamanté underlay, nods to a more modern dandyism that Lopez recalls from his childhood. “I’m from New York, so you have the sweatsuit dandies—the dudes that are in the sweatsuits and are dressed head-to-toe with the accessories,” Lopez says.
For Myha’la, the historical references help her assume a character for the night (or at least the carpet). “I was so interested and excited by the lens through which [Raul] was experiencing this theme,” she says. “For me, as an actor, it gives me a character to play.” She adds: “It feels like I’ll be amongst family, so that eases my nerves. But I literally could not be more excited.”
The person she’s most excited to share the experience with? Her mom. “It is so special,” she says, “especially because my love and adoration and reverence for fashion really came from her.”
Here, Myha’la takes Vogue along as she gets ready for the 2025 Met Gala.