This May, the Met Gala and its accompanying exhibition take a bold and necessary step forward with Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, a landmark exploration of Black dandyism and the art of tailored identity. Beneath the surface of red-carpet glamour lies something more radical; a reckoning with history, power, and visibility through fabric, form and flourish.
The term “dandy” dates back to the 18th century, a sharply dressed male figure concerned not just with looking good, but with crafting an identity through style. Black dandyism, however, is not simply about aesthetic flair—it is a radical act. It resists confinement, challenges systemic erasure, and reclaims elegance as a form of agency. In a world where the concept of “Blackness” was historically imposed by non-Black oppressors, the Black dandy emerged as a figure of resistance, imagining new social and political realities through the cut of a jacket or the tilt of a hat.
The Met Gala's dress code, "Tailored for You", offers more than a styling prompt. It’s a call to step into history with intention and flair. Inspired by the traditions of Black dandyism, guests are urged to reflect their own identities. Whether in gowns or suits—or something gloriously in-between—expect silhouettes that challenge, fabrics that speak, and styling that pays homage to a long legacy of dressing as protest and poetry.
This year, Monica L. Miller joins head curator Andrew Bolton as a guest curator, shaping an exhibition that rethreads history. The exhibition traces the evolution of the Black dandy from 18th century portraiture to present day runway and red carpet. Miller—professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College—explores Black dandyism as a means of self-fashioning against systems designed to erase.
Miller's curated approach is not solely historical. It is vibrantly alive. Designers like Grace Wales Booner, whose collections blend archival references with West African sensibilities, and 3.Paradis, known for its subversive tailoring, appear not as afterthoughts but as descendants of a dandy lineage.
The exhibition repositions menswear not as backdrop, but as a centrepiece. This marks the first time since 2003’s Men in Skirts that the Met Gala has focused exclusively on male dress. And rightly so. As Miller has argued, Black dandyism exists in the charged space between hyper-visibility and institutional invisibility—now given its rightful place within the museum’s halls. From powdered wigs to zoot suits, from Abloh’s modern tailoring to Wales Bonner’s diasporic poetics, Superfine frames fashion as a language of freedom.
The exhibition is arranged into 12 expressive characteristics of Black dandyism—Ownership, Presence, Distinction, Disguise, Freedom, Champion, Respectability, Jook, Heritage, Beauty, Cool, and Cosmopolitanism—each a window into a different facet of Black style and identity. Jook, for instance, nods to Zora Neale Hurston’s 1934 essay, Characteristics of Negro Expression; Ownership, traces the evolution from enslaved individuals forced into livery from the 19th century to autonomous figures wielding fashion as a language of power and pride.
The exhibition itself will be a collaborative marvel. Interdisciplinary artist Torkwase Dyson has designed its conceptual architecture, while sculptor Tanda Francis crafts bespoke mannequin heads that evoke African iconography. Tyler Mitchell, known for his luminous portraits of Black life, has photographed the exhibition catalogue.
Bolton sees Superfine as a defining moment; the culmination of post 2020 commitments to diversity, equity, and representation. Since the Black Lives Matters uprising, the Met has acquired over 150 works by BIPOC designers, some that will feature in Superfine.
This shift is also reflected in the Met Gala’s 2025 co-chairs—Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamiliton, A$AP Rocky, and Anna Wintour, with LeBron James as honorary co-chair. These men are not merely icons of style, they are avatars of a new masculinity, one rooted in grace and self-determination.
The 2025 Spring exhibition, opening days after the gala on 10 May, positions the black dandy not as a footnote in fashion history, but as its driving force.
