May 10 2025 -> October 26 2025

The Met Fifth Avenue, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, Gallery 999 Floor 2
1000 Fifth Avenue
NY 10028 New York
United States

Contact
T : (212) 570 39 51
communications@metmuseum.org
https://www.metmuseum.org

Superfine: Tailoring Black Style will examine the historical and cultural emergence of the Black Dandy, tracing the figure from 18th-century depictions to modern-day representations.

Inspired by Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, the exhibition will present a cultural and historical examination of the Black dandy, from the figure’s emergence in Enlightenment Europe during the 18th century to 21st-century incarnations in the cosmopolitan cities of London, New York, and Paris.

Through the stories of stylish Black individuals across art, literature, music, and society, the exhibition will be organized around a series of characteristics that portray Black dandyism as an evolving sartorial mode, a group of concepts that describe a Black dandy but are not definitive. These characteristics, such as ownership, presence, ease, and cosmopolitan-ism, will also tell the Black dandy’s story over time. Representations of Black dandyism as both an aesthetic and a political construct will be exemplified through a range of media, such as garments and accessories, drawings and prints, and paintings, photographs, film excerpts, and more. These representations will explore the importance of sartorial style to the formation of Black identities in the Atlantic diaspora. Taken together, these narratives offer a history and description of Black dandyism as a discrete phenomenon that reflects broader issues of power and race relations in the Black diaspora.

Superfine: Tailoring Black Style will feature historical garments and accessories as well as contemporary garments by designers working in both the United States and Europe. The exhibition will also present drawings and prints, decorative arts, ephemera, paintings, photographs, and film excerpts by individuals whose work has been instrumental to the formation and understanding of Black identities and experiences from the 18th century to to-day.

Credits
The exhibition will be organized by Monica L. Miller, Guest Curator, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University, with Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge; William DeGregorio, Associate Curator; and Amanda Garfinkel, Associate Curator, all in The Costume Institute; and with help from Kai Marcel, Research Assistant, The Costume Institute.

Photo: Pharrell Williams. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art