Superfine: Tailoring Black Style
Details
This exploration of Black dandy fashion and its representation in art and literature highlights the vibrant, complicated legacy of a recognizable yet constantly shifting style, from its origins in Europe to the contemporary art and fashion worlds.
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style traces the complex and vibrant legacy of menswear across three centuries of Black culture — from today's Hip Hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement as a symbol of creative and political agency, to its imposition as a uniform for servants and enslaved people. Organized by key characteristics of dandyism that resonate across time, including presence, distinction, disguise, and respectability, this fresh interpretation of a centuries-old aesthetic draws on prominent Black voices in fashion, literature, and art — among them, Dandy Wellington, Amy Sherald, Iké Udé, and André 3000. Self-described dandies and high-fashion models feature in a stunning photo essay by artist Tyler Mitchell, who also contributes evocative new photography of garments by contemporary designers such as Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams, and Grace Wales Bonner. These works are shown alongside historical attire worn by Black luminaries including Frederick Douglass, Alexandre Dumas père, Muhammad Ali, and André Leon Talley. Scholar Monica L. Miller contextualizes these objects in her text and shows how the evolution of dandy style inspired new visions of Black masculinity that use the power of clothing and dress as a means of self-expression.
Editors' Note
Author, Monica L. Miller is the Guest Curator of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style and professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. Co-author, Andrew Bolton, is Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Details
This exploration of Black dandy fashion and its representation in art and literature highlights the vibrant, complicated legacy of a recognizable yet constantly shifting style, from its origins in Europe to the contemporary art and fashion worlds.
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style traces the complex and vibrant legacy of menswear across three centuries of Black culture — from today's Hip Hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement as a symbol of creative and political agency, to its imposition as a uniform for servants and enslaved people. Organized by key characteristics of dandyism that resonate across time, including presence, distinction, disguise, and respectability, this fresh interpretation of a centuries-old aesthetic draws on prominent Black voices in fashion, literature, and art — among them, Dandy Wellington, Amy Sherald, Iké Udé, and André 3000. Self-described dandies and high-fashion models feature in a stunning photo essay by artist Tyler Mitchell, who also contributes evocative new photography of garments by contemporary designers such as Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams, and Grace Wales Bonner. These works are shown alongside historical attire worn by Black luminaries including Frederick Douglass, Alexandre Dumas père, Muhammad Ali, and André Leon Talley. Scholar Monica L. Miller contextualizes these objects in her text and shows how the evolution of dandy style inspired new visions of Black masculinity that use the power of clothing and dress as a means of self-expression.
Editors' Note
Author, Monica L. Miller is the Guest Curator of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style and professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. Co-author, Andrew Bolton, is Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Details
This exploration of Black dandy fashion and its representation in art and literature highlights the vibrant, complicated legacy of a recognizable yet constantly shifting style, from its origins in Europe to the contemporary art and fashion worlds.
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style traces the complex and vibrant legacy of menswear across three centuries of Black culture — from today's Hip Hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement as a symbol of creative and political agency, to its imposition as a uniform for servants and enslaved people. Organized by key characteristics of dandyism that resonate across time, including presence, distinction, disguise, and respectability, this fresh interpretation of a centuries-old aesthetic draws on prominent Black voices in fashion, literature, and art — among them, Dandy Wellington, Amy Sherald, Iké Udé, and André 3000. Self-described dandies and high-fashion models feature in a stunning photo essay by artist Tyler Mitchell, who also contributes evocative new photography of garments by contemporary designers such as Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams, and Grace Wales Bonner. These works are shown alongside historical attire worn by Black luminaries including Frederick Douglass, Alexandre Dumas père, Muhammad Ali, and André Leon Talley. Scholar Monica L. Miller contextualizes these objects in her text and shows how the evolution of dandy style inspired new visions of Black masculinity that use the power of clothing and dress as a means of self-expression.
Editors' Note
Author, Monica L. Miller is the Guest Curator of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style and professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. Co-author, Andrew Bolton, is Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Additional Details
372 Pages
The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press (June 03, 2025)
Ships to the US in 3-4 weeks
