Fashion — the sartorial quest for individuality catalyzed by a altering sociocultural panorama — is at stake within the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork’s Costume Institute present Superfine: Tailoring Black Fashion. The exhibition is impressed by Visitor Curator Dr. Monica L. Miller’s 2009 guide Slaves to Trend: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Id, during which she examines the Black Dandy as a Black Atlantic diasporic determine that transcends political, social, and racial hierarchies in historical past, artwork, and literature. By means of a Dandy’s “signature tools” of clothes, gesture, and wit, they problem established notions about race, class, gender, sexuality, and energy. Above all, the Black Dandy gives the Costume Institute with a uncommon alternative to ship an inspiring exhibition that affirms the worth of style as a deeply private, introspective, and pragmatic motion.
Superfine is a survey of Black menswear particularly by way of the prism of Dandyism from the 18th century to as we speak, and flows Dr. Miller’s theories over 12 conceptual and chronological sections, together with “Disguise,” “Heritage,” and “Cool.” It incorporates a plethora of up to date and historic clothes, equipment, work, images, drawings, prints, ornamental arts, and archival supplies. Beneath Miller’s curatorial framework, these objects supply perception into Black Dandies’ approaches to sartorial type and self-fashioning throughout tumultuous societal and hierarchical adjustments with regard to race. Importantly, this exhibition marks the primary time within the Costume Institute’s historical past that it explicitly engages race, and the primary in over 20 years to give attention to menswear. Apart from its cultural significance, it boldly demonstrates style’s capability as a method for abnormal individuals to speak, negotiate, and specific themselves in day by day life.
Meissen Manufactory, “Lady with attendant” (c. 1740), hard-paste porcelain; mount of gilt bronze
The opening part, “Ownership,” appears on the origins of the Black Dandy as a type of conspicuous consumption for 18th-century European royalty and rich retailers, who would gown enslaved Black males in ornate clothes to objectify them as “luxury” servants. The part incorporates two 18th-century livery coats, together with one possible worn by an enslaved baby; portraits; modern ensembles by Grace Wales Bonner, Balmain’s Oliver Rousteing, and 3.PARADIS; in addition to ornamental artwork items that firmly encapsulate the exploitative origin of the Black Dandy. That is epitomized in a gilded bronze 18th-century porcelain sculpture titled “Lady with attendant,” depicting an ostentatiously dressed White “lady” being waited on by a small, well-dressed “blackamoor.” This decorative object — which was possible distributed, offered, and picked up, in all probability positioned atop a mantle or in a show cupboard — is an eerie reminder of the entire disenfranchisement of the Black Dandy in colonial Europe, diminished to an merchandise of ornament.
A later part, entitled “Respectability,” contends with Black Dandies using bespoke fits as a method of gaining respect. This historical past of tailoring unravels from an ensemble worn by Frederick Douglass, together with a shirt and tailcoat, and ends with a up to date outfit by Mains, a label based by British-Nigerian rapper Skepta impressed by Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s hip-hop style in addition to collegiate style. Certainly, “Respectability” highlights the emergence of Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities (HBCUs) within the nineteenth century as one of many sources of this sartorial strategy; tailoring was a part of their curriculum, as seen in {a photograph} on show of Hampton College college students in a single such course in 1899. A maroon “M” monogrammed wool knit sweater with an identical monogrammed scarf accompanied with a pair of cream trousers designed by James Jeter — a Morehouse graduate and inventive director of Males’s Polo by Ralph Lauren — reinforces the affect of those faculties; it’s drawn from a 2019 capsule assortment based mostly on Nineteen Twenties–50s HBCU collegiate attire. Taken collectively, the gallery spans the historical past of the idea of “respect” as one thing earned by the profitable development or reconstruction of id from scratch, or no matter is offered at hand.
Set up view of “Beauty” part of Superfine: Tailoring Black Fashion
“Beauty” offers with Black Dandies’ strategy to style from the Civil Rights Motion to now. Right here, we study in regards to the affect of “cultural confidence” from sources such because the “Black is Beautiful” motion and the circulation of Black print media as seen in magazines akin to Ebony and Jet, enabling broader visible and verbal discourse about Black masculinity. Right here, clothes turns into enjoyable — accents akin to material, ruffles, satin, and sequins take entrance and middle in designs from Pyer Moss, LaQuan Smith, and Marvin Desroc. Whereas prior sections handled sobering topics akin to responses to slavery, emancipation, and the Reconstruction period, this part felt profoundly joyful and liberatory, permitting the Black Dandy unhampered aesthetic pleasure.
“Cosmopolitanism,” the ultimate part, appears on the migration and motion of Dandies throughout the globe and consists of ensembles by British-Ghanaian Savile Row tailor and designer Ozwald Boateng, in addition to archival supplies from the Pan-African airline Air Afrique (1961–2002). It additionally features a set of customized monogrammed Louis Vuitton baggage owned by former Vogue editor André Leon Talley, paired with a set of TELFAR x Wilsons leather-based carry baggage. The inclusion of those objects sees the exhibition come full circle. Pondering again to the primary part, when Dandies had been literal luxurious objects, Talley’s trunks and the Telfar baggage adorned with its signature “TC” emblem — derived from its founder, Telfar Clemens — are a transferring reminder that Black Dandies are now not objects of worldliness, however themselves worldly people freely transferring internationally and the Black diaspora, their baggage a marker of non-public conquests.
Telfar baggage and André Leon Talley’s monogrammed baggage
Curatorial and conceptual accomplishments apart, this exhibition couldn’t have come at a greater time. The sector of style research has not solely turn into extra international and multicultural, but in addition extra invested within the crucial examination of how style informs and impacts the lives and identities of abnormal people. Books akin to Trend and On a regular basis Life: London and New York (2017), Trend in American Life (2024), and the New York Historic’s exhibition Actual Garments, Actual Ladies (2024–25) are upholding this strategy. From a enterprise perspective, luxurious style gross sales are declining, and luxurious style homes are firing and hiring designers at a charge that neither maintains aesthetic continuity nor sparks inspiration for each patrons and admirers. Some style homes, akin to Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, and Yves Saint Laurent, boast their very own museums, the place they’ll dig deep into their archives and increase their historic narratives into numerous exhibitions and publications. However at this stage in style historical past, it should be requested: What extra might yet one more exhibition a few ubiquitous model or designer say that hasn’t already been exhausted?
The give attention to excessive style has created a very saturated and one-note image of style historical past. Although it was printed virtually 20 years in the past, Miller’s guide liberated the Costume Institute from its typical thematic or designer-dedicated exhibitions, pushing it to interact with the what, why, and the way of a particular group of individuals or sort of particular person establishing their sartorial id. Whereas not fully free from the clutches of luxurious — the exhibition is sponsored by Louis Vuitton and big-name manufacturers take middle stage — I can’t consider any Costume Institute exhibition in current reminiscence that has provided a lot crucial and private perception from designers of their wall texts and labels or featured so many modern designers, and it’s remarkably refreshing! When markets or style homes lack stability, private type is a type of expression that may keep nimble, adapting in an ever-changing world. Superfine: Tailoring Black Fashion is a triumph not just for its growth of Black style historical past and visible tradition, but in addition for its stirring and substantive strategy that facilities abnormal people and their gown practices.
{Photograph} of a tailoring class at Hampton College (1899)
Set up view of “Cool” part of Superfine: Tailoring Black Fashion
Left: Livery coat and waistcoat (c. 1840); proper: Livery coat, Brooks Brothers (1856–64)
Set up view of “Cosmopolitan” part of Superfine: Tailoring Black Fashion
Superfine: Tailoring Black Fashion continues on the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork (1000 Fifth Avenue, Higher East Aspect, Manhattan) by way of October 26. The exhibition was curated by Monica L. Miller and Andrew Bolton.