Last year, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its spring 2025 fashion exhibition, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,’ I was genuinely surprised. For the first time in its 88-year history, the Met’s Costume Institute would directly address the subject of race.
Race is layered and complicated. Failure to grasp even the subtlest nuance can derail the purest intentions. Most people choose not to talk about it, and so we, as a society, never learn how to sustain a productive dialogue. As a result, the rot of archaic and malignant attitudes remain unchecked, allowing them to fester and grow, while real progress becomes a Sisyphean struggle.
Fashion is a three-dimensional medium that is heavily influenced by image and perception. Judgements and conclusions are frequently made based on how something looks. For fashion curators and historians, race is often the elephant in the room. Of course race is pertinent to the study of fashion and dress, and yet it has taken 88 years for The Met to finally recognize it as a theme worthy of discussion and display. When I read that ‘Superfine’ was to be “a cultural and historical examination of Black style over three hundred years through the concept of dandyism,” my surprise changed to apprehension. The dandy, a man unduly devoted to style, neatness, and fashion in dress and appearance, is only one of many male style archetypes (there is also the jock, the prep, the nerd, etc). Using the dandy to filter and frame 300 years of Black style felt disappointingly reductive. Would ‘Superfine,’ as the Met purported, explore “the importance of style to the formation of Black identities in the Atlantic diaspora,” or would it reinforce the unflattering stereotype of the superficial and unserious black male?
‘Superfine’ is the work of guest curator Monica Miller, a professor of Africana studies at Barnard College. It is heavily inspired by her 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. As I began to read about the Black dandy, who, as Miller describes him, is far more political than his white counterpart, I suddenly realized that this new spotlight on the archetype is more prudent than I had initially thought. Not only does it illuminate a marginalized history, but it elucidates what is happening in fashion right now. Over the last decade, Black culture, particularly hip-hop culture, has reshaped fashion in its own image. The extent to which Black style has influenced the way men everywhere dress is overwhelming. Fashion has rallied around the Black dandy.
In the first quarter of the 21st century, rap emerged as one of the most popular music genres in the world. Like jazz and rock 'n’ roll before it, it originated from Black American subculture before dominating the mainstream and becoming the defining sound of the modern era. It evolved and grew more sophisticated, eventually giving rise to the latest and most recognizable incarnation of the Black dandy: the hip-hop artist or rapper. He is best exemplified by musicians like Pharrell Williams and A$AP Rocky (both co-chairs of this year's Met Gala), as well as Kendrick Lamar, and Drake. Through both their music and personal style choices, they have invented a new culture of connoisseurship. More than bling or broggadicio, it is a genuine appreciation for conceptual and aesthetic innovation in design. Through them, listeners and fans have learned not only about luxury Italian brands, but also avant-garde Belgian menswear designers. Hip-hop and rap have given straight men the permission to like and consume designer clothing, resulting in what some have referred to as “broification.” In the past, straight men who were fond of fashion were called “metrosexuals,” but that term has grown increasingly obsolete as fashion saviness has become more and more normalized.
Hip-hop and rap have not only increased awareness and appreciation for fashion, but they have helped to define what is and isn’t fashionable. Menswear is currently at the tail end of an almost decade-long love affair with streetwear. Although streetwear is not relegated to any one race, it, like hip-hop and rap, originated from Black subculture. Over the last decade, the iconic pieces that have defined classic streetwear style have ascended into high fashion to be embraced by the world’s premier luxury brands: the hoodie, the sneaker, the zip-up jacket. The provenance of their rise in fashionability can be traced to Demna’s Balenciaga, and before that Raf Simons, but before that, style-conscious Black youths. The voluminous silhouette that is currently fashionable in menswear—the sloping drop shoulder, tent-like torsos, and wide-cut trousers—mirrors the oversized proportions of hip-hop style. Whether it has been interpreted into casual wear or formal tailoring, the influence of streetwear is all-encompassing and ubiquitous.
Curiously, fashion’s streetwear moment echoes another period in history, the zoot suit of the 1940s. With its outsized, built-out shoulder and ballooned pants, the enormously oversized look was worn by Black and Mexican American youths as an expression of their racial and ethnic identities and as a rebuttal against the status quo of mainstream America. When fabric consumption was rationed during World War II, the zoot suit was seen as unpatriotic. In 1943, growing tension sparked a series of violent riots in Los Angeles. But, eventually, with the rise in popularity of swing music, the zoot suit would be adopted and worn by white American youths as well. History, like fashion, is cyclical.
In 2023, Louis Vuitton appointed Pharrell Williams to be creative director of menswear, while this year Kendrick Lamar was named a Chanel ambassador. Right now, the Black dandy is at the height of fashion, and Monica Miller’s ‘Superfine’ has the tremendous potential to not only recognize this milestone moment but also unpack what it means.
The history of Black style is long and not always full of plucky, feel-good stories. An earnest discussion cannot avoid the ugly topics of slavery and racism. Miller’s scholarship, coupled with the Met’s resources and reach, could prove to be a monumental windfall for furthering understanding of race and all its myriad complications. The timing of this year’s costume exhibition is auspicious, as the Trump administration works to implement a neo-fascist and white supremacist agenda in the American government. A celebration of Black style at one of the country’s largest cultural institutions is almost a subversive act of resistance. A fashion exhibition cannot save the world or solve racial inequality, but it can be an education. If Miller can help tell the untold stories of the Black experience and elaborate on Black style’s contribution to contemporary fashion, that would be a win. If non-black audiences can attend the show and leave with an enriched appreciation of Black history, culture, and aesthetics, that too would also be a highly satisfactory result. But, if in the end, all the exhibit is able to do is inspire a few black folks, like myself, to dress and live as we please and take pride in being our authentic selves, well, that would be more than fine. It would be ‘Superfine.’
