Lisa in Met Gala black outfit in hotel room.

The real lesson from Lisa’s Met Gala ‘Rosa Parks crotch’ moment

The BLACKPINK star's Met Gala moment turned heads, but ignoring Black culture while wearing it on your body? That’s the real faux pas

Lisa in Louis Vuitton Met Gala outfit

Vogue

Words by Daniel Anderson

New sentences are invented on the Internet every day. And Monday’s Met Gala gave us a doozy: “Is that Rosa Parks on the crotch of K-pop superstar Lisa’s Louis Vuitton fit?”

The question, sparked by zoomed-in photos of Lisa’s lace bodysuit, lit up timelines and algorithms. 

Lisa’s Louis Vuitton ensemble, upon closer inspection, featured an array of embroidered faces stitched into its lace, sparking speculation and scrutiny online. The portraits, placed most visibly along the crotch of her bodysuit, became something of a Rorschach test for viewers, with many believing one face in particular bore a striking resemblance to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Parks, best known for her act of defiance in 1955 when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in segregated Alabama, became a national symbol of resistance and helped galvanize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Given this year’s Met Gala dress code, “Tailored for You,” and its corresponding exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the evening aimed to honor the enduring influence of Black dandyism, a sartorial tradition rooted in purpose, defiance, and a self-expression. The exhibition draws inspiration from cultural critic Monica L. Miller’s seminal 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, which traces how fashion has long served as a powerful tool of resistance and identity-making for Black individuals across centuries. On the red carpet, many attendees embraced the theme through contemporary interpretations of zoot suits, the broad-shouldered, high-waisted ensembles made iconic by Black men in the 1940s. 

Lisa’s outfit was originally designed for the Louis Vuitton men’s spring-summer 2024 collection. The look was the work of Pharrell Williams, the men’s creative director at the time and a co-chair of this year’s Met Gala, who collaborated with renowned American artist Henry Taylor to bring it to life. Taylor is known for his vivid, deeply personal portraiture of both everyday people and titans like the Obamas. A spokesperson for Louis Vuitton has confirmed the embroidered faces are “portraits of figures who have been a part of the artist’s life.” In a follow-up statement to Vulture, a representative for Taylor, who collaborated on Lisa’s look, clarified some of the confusion: “The figure featured in Lisa’s Louis Vuitton look is not Rosa Parks, but one of Henry’s neighbors.”

While the ensemble was selected for Lisa by Williams and sanctioned by Louis Vuitton, it still struck a nerve with fans, who felt the look was poorly considered at best and outright disrespectful at worst. The backlash comes amid renewed criticism of BLACKPINK after resurfaced audition footage showed Lisa, Jennie, and Rosé casually singing lyrics containing the N-word, reigniting evergreen conversations about anti-Blackness within K-pop. Just in the month of April, K-pop acts BM from KARD, girl group Kiss of Life, and soloist from20 all came under fire for instances of anti-Black racism and cultural appropriation. Though the BLACKPINK clips are more than a decade old, the absence of any public acknowledgment or apology has left many Black fans and allies feeling dismissed. The fact that all three BLACKPINK members linked to the resurfaced footage were invited to this year’s event only heightened the sense of disconnect.

K-pop and BLACKPINK’s work under YG Entertainment in particular, has long drawn from the aesthetics, sounds, and stylings of Black culture, often without the corresponding depth of cultural understanding. From choreography and vocal stylings to fashion and slang, much of the group’s global appeal has been built atop foundations of hip-hop and R&B. Lisa, in particular, has been marketed as the group’s “rapper” alongside Jennie. Her solo debut with LALISA leaned heavily on this visual and sonic lexicon with some Thai influences thrown in too. In an interview with Billboard in 2022, when asked about what hip-hop meant to them, Lisa remarked that “Hip-hop is in my blood.”  

In her February debut solo album, Alter Ego, Lisa introduces five alter egos, each meant to represent different facets of her personality, but critics have noted that for someone now poised to move beyond the creative guardrails of K-pop, she still hasn’t clearly articulated who she actually is. While concept-heavy releases and curated personas are standard in K-pop, Lisa’s attempt to shape a post-idol identity through these characters feels surface-level, especially given the absence of deeper personal storytelling or artistic introspection.

Fashion, now more than ever, is entwined with K-pop, not just as adornment, but as a medium of personal mythmaking and global identity building. The Met Gala, often called fashion’s biggest stage, presented Lisa with a rare opportunity: her debut appearance could have served as a bold statement of who she is beyond choreography and concepts, especially as she repositions herself as an international solo star. And while yes, Lisa chose the Louis Vuitton look, it was not one that felt reimagined by or through her. The look, now repurposed from a previous Louis Vuitton menswear runway show, didn’t appear to carry a single flourish that felt uniquely or intimately hers.

That’s not to say the White Lotus actress was required to wear something explicitly tied to her Thai heritage. Jennie and Rosé opted out of heritage dressing too, instead continuing their long-standing relationships with Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent respectively, but it’s worth noting how powerful some nods to cultural legacy were at the event, such as SEVENTEEN member S.Coups’ hanbok-inspired suit from Boss or Diljit Dosanjh’s outfit from designer Prabal Gurung.  

What remains striking is that in their respective behind-the-scenes “Get Ready With Me” videos and interviews, neither Lisa, Jennie, nor Rosé referenced Black artists or cultural influences, despite how central those influences have been to BLACKPINK’s entire career and now at the Met Gala, whose theme was all about the influence of Black artists. In Lisa’s prep video, it’s Williams who brings up the Met Gala’s theme and its ties to Black tailoring. Rosé’s stylist is the one who references André Leon Talley. Jennie mentions her outfit as a throwback to 1920s fashion history, but only uses the word “Black” when reciting BLACKPINK’s signature catchphrase. The absence of acknowledgment from the artists themselves continues a pattern of enjoying the benefits of Black cultural capital while distancing themselves from its history and context. 

As Lisa, Jennie, and Rosé each embark on solo careers, they’re no longer just K-pop idols, they are global celebrities crossing into the Western cultural zeitgeist with a velocity few Korean artists have achieved. Rosé’s recent hit APT featuring Bruno Mars has become a streaming mainstay around the world. Their individual ventures like Rosé’s inclusion on the upcoming F1 movie soundtrack and recent appearance at the Grand Prix in Miami with Lisa, to jaunts on nouveau media platforms like Hot Ones, Chicken Shop Date, and Therapuss with Jake Shane all signal a calculated expansion into new cultural areas.  

In a podcast interview with Zane Lowe, Jennie visibly stumbled over the word “multicultural.” It wasn’t just a slip. It offered a glimpse of something more tender and revealing. Perhaps there’s no direct equivalent in Korean, or maybe she had simply never been asked to define herself that way before. But in that moment, there was a quiet sweetness: the dawning realization of a word that, for many in a Western audience, has long encapsulated how they see her. In truth, Jennie, Lisa, and Rosé are already among the most visible multicultural figures in global pop culture.

With that cosmopolitan ascent comes a different level of responsibility. Global stardom means becoming a participant in more than just Western opportunities, it means engaging with Western histories, sensitivities, and standards. Dismissing cultural appropriation controversies in K-pop as misunderstandings or blaming them on a supposed language barrier cannot apply to them anymore. For artists whose work is deeply indebted to Black music and aesthetics, and who regularly benefit from that proximity, the expectation isn’t just performance, but active participation. It means showing cultural literacy, taking accountability, and giving credit where it’s due. 

As they redefine themselves beyond the K-pop system, Lisa, Jennie, and Rosé face a crucial inflection point: will their global ambitions come with global awareness, or simply global access?

Published on May 7, 2025

Words by Daniel Anderson

Daniel Anderson is a disabled Chinese American adoptee based in Seattle. His freelance writing specialties include K-pop, entertainment, and food. He believes that any restaurant can be a buffet, and the key to success is to take a nap each day. Follow his adventures on Instagram @danzstan.