The theme for the 2025 Met Costume Institute exhibition at the @MetMuseum has been announced! “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” will open to the public at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 10, 2025, and run through October 26, 2025. https://t.co/gEhzjGVKFd
— Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) October 9, 2024
Announced today, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the upcoming Costume Institute show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will take the Black dandy as its subject, examining the importance of clothing and style to the formation of Black identities in the Atlantic diaspora.
The show is inspired by the 2009 book of Monica Miller, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” in which she establishes Black dandyism as both an aesthetic and political construct. Dandyism, for the unacquainted, is an exuberant attention to dress. In advance of this morning’s announcement, Miller said another definition is “dressing wisely and well.” She described Black dandyism as “a strategy and a tool to rethink identity, to reimagine the self in a different context. To really push a boundary—especially during the time of enslavement, to really push a boundary on who and what counts as human, even.”
This year the co-chairs are Pharrell Williams, actor Colman Domingo, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, musician A$AP Rocky, and Anna Wintour, with basketball star Lebron James acting as honorary co-chair.
Livery, American, Courtesy Maryland Center for History and Culture, gift of Miss Constance Petre, 1946
Zoot suit, American, 1940s; Alfred Z. Solomon-Janet A. Sloane Endowment Fund, 2024
Suit, American, 1939; Courtesy Benny Reese, Reese’s Vintage Pieces.
Ensemble, Virgil Abloh (American, 1980–2021) for Louis Vuitton (French, founded 1854), fall/winter 2021 menswear; Courtesy Collection Louis Vuitton.
Ensemble, Pharrell Williams (American, born 1973) for Louis Vuitton (French, founded 1854), spring/summer 2025 menswear; Courtesy Collection Louis Vuitton.
”Maya Angelou Passport” ensemble, Foday Dumbuya (Sierra Leonean) for Labrum London (British, founded 2014), fall/winter 2023; Courtesy Labrum London.
Uhhh, I have some concerns.
