The first Monday in May heralds fashion’s biggest event of the year: The Met Gala. This year’s exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, was organised by the Costume Institute’s head curator, Andrew Bolton and co-curator Monica Miller, chair and professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University.

The second-ever exhibition dedicated to menswear (following 2003’s Bravehearts: Men in Skirts), Superfine traces 300 years of Black style and identity through the lens of the dandy. Dandies, men for whom personal appearance is paramount, emerged in the 18th century and viewed personal style as the ultimate art form – a rejection of the sober tailoring that became the de facto look for men of the time. As famed Regency England dandy Beau Brummel said: “Don’t talk about your clothes, let your clothes do the talking.”

For the Black dandy, dressing up was about more than just aesthetics – it was about identity, resistance and flourishing. The Abolitionist Frederic Douglass, who was the most photographed American of the 19th century, wore his own suits for photos and argued in lectures that photography was a powerful tool to counter racist stereotypes of Black people. Later, during the 1920s, Harlem became the epicenter of Black art and intellectual thinking; men of the era wore bespoke suits accessorised with suspenders, bow ties, fedoras and other sleek additions. Later, in the 1930s and ‘40s, the voluminous zoot suit came out of Harlem dance halls and into fashion.

There are nods to more modern dandies, like the late fashion editor André Leon Talley’s monogrammed Louis Vuitton luggage and distinctive caftans, Harlem designer Dapper Dan’s “knock-ups” and Virgil Abloh’s tailoring-meets-streetwear designs. “A dandy, at his or her core, is a rewriter of narratives – the narratives carved into a society’s understanding about the communities from which the dandy has emerged,” wrote playwright Jeremy O. Harris for Vogue. “The story my clothes had to tell as I walked the halls of my private school in Virginia… was that home was safe, my family and I were good – because I was dressed not just well but ornately.”

The exhibition takes more than 200 pieces from American, European and African sources over the past three centuries and displays them across 12 subthemes, including beauty, respectability and heritage. A$AP Rocky, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton and Pharrell Williams co-chaired the gala, with LeBron James serving as honorary co-chair.

‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ opens to the public on May 10.

Photography courtesy of The Costume Institute.

metmuseum.org

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