(CNN) — Though often underappreciated, menswear has been undergoing a renaissance on red carpets and runways. Next year, a landmark exhibition on Black suiting and sartorial codes will serve as the inspiration for fashion’s biggest night out.
The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its spring 2025 exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which will celebrate Black dandyism from the 18th century through its revival during the Harlem Renaissance and its impact on luxury fashion today. The much-anticipated Met Gala event typically draws its theme from the accompanying exhibition, which A-Listers are encouraged to interpret on the red carpet.
Last year’s “Garden of Time” theme, based on the 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard, explored motifs of decay, beauty and fragility, and coincided with the exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” The show featured garments spanning four centuries — many so delicate, they could no longer be touched or worn.
For the upcoming Met Gala, the Costume Institute has also announced a new lineup of famous co-chairs, all fashion-forward men: Actor Colman Domingo, British racing driver Lewis Hamilton, rapper A$AP Rocky and producer Pharrell Williams will work with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour to orchestrate the event, along with honorary co-chair LeBron James.
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It’s a fitting roster of style icons who have a rich history with the Met Gala, from Domingo’s dramatic white cape suit with black Calla lilies last year, courtesy of designer Willy Chavarria, to A$AP Rocky’s thrifted grandma quilt from 2021’s event. Williams is the Men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton — which is co-sponsoring the exhibition — and is one of the many Black designers whose work has a direct link to dandyism marked by exuberant collections, flamboyant details and silhouettes that push the boundaries of men’s tailoring.
The exhibition, based on historian Monica L. Miller’s book, “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” will be history-making in multiple ways. It’s the first fashion exhibition at the Met to focus exclusively on Black design, and Miller will also be the Costume Institute’s first Black curator when she organizes the exhibit with the institute’s curator in charge, Andrew Bolton.
The hallmarks of dandyism — which emerged in menswear in the 1790s in London and Paris — are elegance and exaggerated dress, and it became fashionable for enslaved men to dress extravagantly, too. Black dandies became known for their “sartorial novelty,” according to Miller’s book. But dandyism has deeper roots in African aesthetics, and has since become a transgressive subculture that is continuously revived around the world. In a press statement, Bolton pointed to its influence on fashion today, crediting Black designers within the lineage with revitalizing menswear.
“At the vanguard of this revitalization is a group of extremely talented Black designers who are constantly challenging normative categories of identity,” he said. ”While their styles are both singular and distinctive, what unites them is a reliance on various tropes that are rooted in the tradition of dandyism, and specifically Black dandyism.”
In the news release, Miller hints at an exhibition that will dig deep into how fashion, race, identity and power go hand in hand. Dandyism marked a seismic shift in self-determination and dignity for African Americans, and is story that is still unfolding in the culture today.
“The history of Black dandyism illustrates how Black people have transformed from being enslaved and stylized as luxury items, acquired like any other signifier of wealth and status, to autonomous, self-fashioning individuals who are global trendsetters,” she said. The exhibition will “highlight the aesthetic playfulness that the dandy engenders and the ways in which sartorial experimentation gestures at both assimilation and distinction — all while telling a story about self and society.”
The-CNN-Wire
