LONDON — It’s been a year of firsts and full circles for the British designer Nicholas Daley, who was honored with the 2025 Pratt Fashion Visionary Award in New York on Friday.

As this year’s recipient, he follows in the footsteps of such other honorees as Francesco Risso, Robin Givhan, Lindsay Peoples, Kerby Jean-Raymond and Gabriela Hearst.

During his visit to the college, Daley visited Pratt’s Brooklyn campus and offered up some wisdom to the student body. 

“[My advice] was that even at my stage, I’m still doing new things and having first experiences. It will be the same for them — a never-ending cycle of learning,” Daley told WWD. 

His visit to Pratt also led the designer to reminisce about his time as a fashion student at Central Saint Martins.

“I met Monica L. Miller recently and her 2009 book ‘Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of the Black Diasporic Identity,’ was one of the books I referenced in my thesis, so it felt like a full-circle moment meeting her because I’m now part of her curation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ exhibition,” the designer said.

“What I’m trying to pass on to the students of Pratt — or any university — is to let them know that it’s a constant evolution in work, opportunities and how these things come back around,” he added.

There’s much to celebrate for the designer who founded his label a decade ago. Making his Met Gala debut with the musician Leon Bridges was one of them. Daley created a bespoke pinstripe suit in a rich navy and amber clay yarn for the stripes. 

When designing the outfit, the two men swapped references from the late ‘60s and ‘70s of James Baldwin, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Case in point, the cravat tie that Bridges wore was a direct reference to an image of Baldwin and it was knitted by Daley’s mother Maureen.

“My mom used to knit stuff for my dad when they were first dating. She didn’t really have that much money, but she knew how to knit. A lot of the first things she gave my dad were all these knitted ties, berets and jumpers,” he said.

The Met Gala was a double win for the designer as he also got to see his own creation inside the museum. Miller and her team had picked out a look from Daley’s spring 2022 collection that touched on designers with Caribbean lineage. The look is a safari suit inspired by the Kareeba suit, which was designed by Jamaican designer Ivy Ralph and became a prominent item of clothing in the ‘70s in Jamaica.

“That felt like another full-circle moment because the original Kareeba suit was there and then my piece, which is sort of a contemporary version of it, was there too,” said Daley, who had the opportunity to meet Ralph’s granddaughter Ivy-Victoria Maurice, with whom he discussed the history of Jamaica and fashion.

The lead-up to the Met Gala was a key affair for Daley and his British peers, who were spotlighted on the red carpet and at the exhibition. They included Martine Rose, Grace Wales Bonner, Ozwald Boateng, Charlie Casely-Hayford, Priya Ahluwalia and Tolu Coker.

“It shows you the progression, at least within the U.K., in regards to diversity and strong representation. It shows we’ve got depth and that things are working — it’s also just nice to be part of that alumni,” he said.