And this May 5th extravaganza starting on the steps of the Met in NYC will coincide, as usual, with the museum’s costume exhibition which this year is titled ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’.
With Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams co-chairing this year’s Met Costume Gala, along with usual suspect Anna Wintour of Vogue and 2025 Honorary Chair LeBron James, you know this is going to be an affair to remember.
The inspiration for this year’s theme ‘Tailored for You’ comes from the exhibition which will open at the Met in Manhattan on May 10th and will run through the end of October of 2025. ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ promises to “present a cultural and historical examination of the Black dandy, from the figure’s emergence in Enlightenment Europe during the 18th century to today’s incarnations in cities around the world,” as the Met’s website explains.
The exhibition itself is inspired by guest curator Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, and will explore the importance of sartorial style to the formation of Black identities in the Atlantic diaspora.
“Historically, the term dandy was used to describe someone—often a man—who is extremely devoted to style and approaches it as a discipline,” the Met’s online description continues. “Dandyism was initially imposed on Black men in 18th-century Europe as the Atlantic slave trade and an emerging culture of consumerism created a trend of fashionably dressed, or dandified, servants. Dandyism offered Black people an opportunity to use clothing, gesture, irony, and wit to transform their given identities and imagine new ways of embodying political and social possibilities.”
More recently, Black Dandies have also started a “society for elegant environments and people” in the Central African nations of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo, where they call themselves "sapeurs" — for men — and "sapeuses" — for women. The term comes from the French phrase "se saper," which means "to dress with class.” You can see an image of some of them above.
And then there are the photographs of London-based Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj, who shoots Black Dandies through the sensibilities of a MENA lens. His Instagram account is deliciously wonderful, check it out!
I remember when I interviewed fashion historian and curator Olivier Saillard at Pitti Uomo for The National newspaper and he told me a story about an English dandy he once met in the home of Madame Carven, the couturier. “He had a very nice costume [suit in French] from Saville Row and inside the pocket he had a paper where he would have written the day when he would need to wash the costume,” Saillard recalled for me. “He didn’t move too much,” he added “this English dandy, so as not to damage or wrinkle his suit, one of only ten he owned, and in the areas where moths had gotten to the wool, the dandy had “embroidered the holes, with the dates of the year — how poetic is that!” This is what comes to mind when the word “dandy” appears for yours truly.
The exhibition, which is made possible at the Met thanks to Louis Vuitton, will tell the Black Dandy’s story over time through a range of media, such as garments and accessories, drawings and prints, and paintings, photographs, film excerpts, and more. Taken together, these narratives offer a history and description of Black dandyism as a discrete phenomenon that reflects broader issues of power and race in the Black diaspora.
The committee members for this year are André 3000, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens, Grace Wales Bonner, Jordan Casteel, Dapper Dan, Doechii, Ayo Edebiri, Edward Enninful, Jeremy O. Harris, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Rashid Johnson, Regina King, Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, Audra McDonald, Janelle Monáe, Jeremy Pope, Angel Reese, Sha'Carri Richardson, Olivier Rousteing, Tyla, USHER, and Kara Walker.
Nigerian-American Chef Kwame Onwuachi will create The Met Gala menu and artist Cy Gavin will provide the creative direction for the red carpet design, with other décor concepts led by Derek McLane and Raúl Àvila.
For more information on the exhibition in NYC and to book advance tickets, check out the Met’s website.
Images sourced online.