The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute is dipping its toes into the politics of race relations.
The museum announced Wednesday that its blockbuster spring 2025 fashion show will be “Super Fine: Tailoring Black Style,” highlighting the history of black dandies and how peacocking goes beyond aesthetics to empowering. . A$AP Rocky, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour will co-host the show’s opening gala. LeBron James will be chairman emeritus.
It is the first fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to focus exclusively on the work of designers of color, and the first exhibition in more than 20 years to focus explicitly on men’s wear. This exhibition is another step in the Costume Institute’s efforts to correct its historic failings. Andrew Bolton, curator in charge, said it was about diversity and inclusion.
“I wanted to put on a show about race that could use our collection to tell the stories that were missing from conversations within and outside of museums,” Bolton said. “This is the first of its kind.”
The aim, he said, was to demonstrate what happens when the concept of “dandy”, as defined by Beau Brummel, Regent of England, becomes racialized. For example, when enslaved people are treated as luxury items to dress up and display, and how those clothes are utilized by slaves and used to disrupt existing systems and create new identities. Was it done? Additionally, we explain how contemporary black menswear designers connect their work with this tradition.
The show’s title is taken from a memoir by an 18th century slave man who wrote about what he planned to wear to celebrate when he was able to buy his freedom. It was a “suit made of the finest clothing.” In short, my outfit on your face!
Mr. Bolton had been thinking about what such a show would look like since 2021, but ultimately decided to use Africana studies professor Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slavery and Fashion: Black Dandyism and He said he settled on “Styling Black Diaspora Identity.” At Barnard College, as a template. Ms. Miller is the show’s guest curator. The Costume Institute has never had a black curator (a situation Bolton intends to rectify).
Miller said she was “surprised” when she received the phone call from Bolton.
Bolton has been working to diversify the Met’s fashion assets since the summer of 2020, when the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed prompted the institution to examine its own failures of inclusion. . At the time, the spring blockbuster “About Time,” which celebrated the museum’s 150th anniversary, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, so Bolton relaunched the show to include more designers of color. I planned it.
He then used In America: A Lexicon of Fashion to acquire more work from young BIPOC designers, and In America: An Anthology of Fashion, he acquired more work from young BIPOC designers, including Anne Lowe (whose work has long been at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). It shined a spotlight on previously overlooked designers such as (without being seen) and Fanny Chris.
“I mean, if you don’t put in the effort, you don’t get there,” Miller said. Creating “Superfine” was “an opportunity for everyone on the curatorial team to really understand how many Black designers there are, both historically and contemporary,” she said.
“Superfine” follows other recent museum shows, including “Africa’s Fashion Diaspora,” currently on display at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s museum (and “Fresh, Fly, Fabulous”, which was held last year at the same university). : 50 Years of Hip Hop Style”). , “African Fashion,” to be held at the Brooklyn Museum in 2023, examines the importance of black fashion.
“They all have really intellectual and sometimes political lines at heart,” Miller said. But on this show, she said: Power really matters. ”
The show is not just about fashion, she said, but about Black ability born out of necessity. Who are you and who do you want to be?
“It’s about survival, right?” she continued. “But it’s also about transcendence. It’s about ambition. It’s about the future.”
The show, which includes 12 different themes such as “Ownership,” “Caricature,” and “Internationalism,” will focus on black dandies in Britain and the United States from the 18th century to today (although the history of African dandies There’s also a nod to )). Historical clothing will be juxtaposed with works by contemporary designers such as Grace Wales Bonner, Virgil Abloh, Olivier Rousteing, Rishi Helleburg and Rashemi Botter of Botter, as well as paintings, videos and documents.
The gold-trimmed purple velvet livery worn by enslaved servants in Maryland is “beautiful, but also very violent,” Miller said. It will be displayed next to Wales Bonner’s velvet suit trimmed with gold and cowrie shells. , a symbol representing African currency and heritage. A Labrum London suit designed by Foday Dumbuya and printed with immigration documents will sit alongside the WEB Du Bois passport collection. There will be about 30 designers in total at the show, and Bolton has a list of new designers he would like to attract.
Mr Bolton, who has linked his shows to contemporary issues and covered hot topics such as ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ and ‘Celestial Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’, admitted: . Bringing up racist dandyism may be seen as controversial, especially after an election that focused on issues of immigration and racism.
“This is what we in Black studies call ‘difficult history,'” Ms. Miller said. But it also explores “moments of real joy,” she added.
The show space, which opens on May 10th (the gala will be held on May 5th), was designed by artist Tolkwase Dyson and created by Thanda Francis, known for her monumental African head and mask sculptures. A custom-made mannequin head is used. . Multimedia artist Ike Ude, who Bolton says embodies the essence of the modern dandy, was a special consultant, and Tyler Mitchell, the first black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover, shot the catalog. is being carried out.
The main sponsor is Louis Vuitton (Mr. Williams is a Vuitton menswear designer), and other sponsors include Instagram, Precious Moloi Motsepe, Africa Fashion International, and Tyler Perry. The gala dinner menu will be designed by Nigerian-American chef and author Kwame Onwuachi. The dress code for the evening is still a secret. Still, everyone can expect to look…well, very beautiful.
