{"id":65705,"date":"2025-05-05T21:50:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T01:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/?p=65705"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:47:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:47:44","slug":"superfine-tailoring-black-style-maps-out-identity-through-dandyism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/superfine-tailoring-black-style-maps-out-identity-through-dandyism\/","title":{"rendered":"Superfine: Tailoring Black Style Maps Out Identity Through Dandyism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"cover\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9707.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65713\" \/>&#8220;<\/div>\n<style>\n#introbox {border:1px solid white;padding:80px;max-width: 850px;margin: auto !important;clear:both;padding-top:30px !important;}\n#introtxt {margin:50px 0;padding:0 40px;font-size:1.3rem;text-align:justify !important;}\n#introtxt, #introtxt p,#introbox, .introcredits {font-family:\"SuisseIntl-Regular\",arial,helvetica,sans-serif;}\n#introbox .introcredits {font-size:1.5rem;padding:40px 0;margin-top:40px;text-align:center;}\n.txtdiv {padding: 0 40px;clear:both;}\n#introbox {font-weight:300;}\n.seriestitle {font-size:1.9em;text-align:center;font-weight:900;font-family:\"SuisseIntl-Thin\",arial,helvetica,sans-serif;}\n.title {font-size:3em !important;font-weight:300;margin-bottom:65px;text-align:center;text-transform:capitalize;font-family:\"SuisseIntl-Thin\",arial,helvetica,sans-serif;}\n.credits {margin-top:60px;margin-bottom:100px;font-size:0.75rem;font-weight:normal;text-align:center;}\n.credits-small {font-size:.75em;}\n<\/style>\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/css\/sb\/index-sb@9e8baf1be17137f952c9eacc710f6bf0b29b9b08.css\" \/>\n<div class=\"txtdiv\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"introbox\">\n<div id=\"introtxt\">\n<div class=\"title\">Superfine: Tailoring Black Style Maps Out Identity Through Dandyism<\/div>\n<p>This year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had the daunting task of looking at three centuries of Black fashion through the lens of dandyism, revealing how tailoring and design have shaped Black identity across the Atlantic diaspora. Located in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style delivers a sharply curated, multi-century meditation on Black dandyism as aesthetic, identity, and resistance. Curated by Andrew Bolton, this year he was joined by guest curator, Monica L. Miller, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, and prompts from her 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Across an ocean of understanding, one thing is clear\u2014black style has been the forward-facing expression of joy and pain, pride and sorrow, rhythm and blues. A connecting language when faces were familiar, but tongues were unclear. Framed through the lens of dandyism, the exhibition takes a clearer path toward understanding how tailored menswear maps out Black identity, literally and metaphorically, across Atlantic histories of subjugation and self-fashioning.<\/p>\n<p>With an exhibition space created by artist Torkwase Dyson, looks come alive from Grace Wales Bonner\u2019s cowrie-adorned, crushed velvet suit to James Jeter\u2019s Morehouse look for Polo by Ralph Lauren to Virgil Abloh\u2019s brass-laced three-piece, serving not just as material culture but as vessels of autonomy and assertion. With fulfilling precision, the show links 18th-century colonial livery that can be hard to face, yet essential to understand connections to contemporary design vocabularies like Ozwald Boateng, Martine Rose, Bianca Saunders, Agbobly, 3.PARADIS, Theophilio, Jawara Alleyne, and countless others. Fused with scholarly focus on how political clothing can be, cultural leaders, like W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass, highlight how grooming and dress were power tools of distinction. And one would be remiss to forget to mention the legendary catalyst for the conversation, the late Andr\u00e9 Leon Talley, whose Morty Sills and Jeffrey Banks suits anchor the show\u2019s tribute to Black fashion\u2019s towering tastemakers\u2014those who understood that style could both disrupt and dignify.<\/p>\n<div class=\"introcredits\">\nPhotos by <a href='\/\/models.com\/people\/betty-sze'>Betty Sze<\/a> for Models.com<br \/>\nText by <a href='\/\/models.com\/people\/irene-ojo-felix'>Irene Ojo-Felix<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"credits\">Cover: From Left, Mains by Skepta, Polo by Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton by Pharrell Williams, Louis Vuitton by Virgil Abloh<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"center\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9669.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65708\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/0A2919DA-F056-46D1-9328-C44C76AB6DDF_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1392\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65707\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Salvatore Ferragamo by Maximilian Davis, Philip Treacy hat and Jean Paul Gaultier Tailcoat worn by Grace Jones, Balmain by Olivier Rousteing<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9675.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65709\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Livery coat and waistcoat, Brooks Brothers Livery coat<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9679.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65711\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Balmain by Olivier Rousteing<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9691.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65712\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Wales Bonner by Grace Wales Bonner<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9710.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65714\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Jeffrey Banks and Morty Sills worn by Andr\u00e9 Leon Talley<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9712.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65715\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Luar by Raul Lopez<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/2K8A9725.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65716\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Louis Vuitton by Virgil Abloh, Patience Torlowei for Andr\u00e9 Leon Talley, 3.PARADIS, Kwasi Paul, Agbobly<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/8F6A3EC9-F8AC-4159-AAB9-4865C9793B91_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65717\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Bianca Saunders, Maximilian Davis, Off-White by Ib Kamara<\/div>\n<div class=\"credits\">Livery coat and waistcoat, Brooks Brothers Livery coat<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/33A24196-581A-4639-B215-9128222D0E42.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65718\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Telfar x Wilsons Leather, Louis Vuitton personalized trunks by Andr\u00e9 Leon Talley<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/4399C0AD-DB77-45BE-9DDE-99D95D7C690B_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2667\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65719\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Ozwald Boateng<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/9EA376EB-2842-4A00-852E-992E769FC839_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65797\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Phil Sandlin for Prince, Pat Campano for Sylvester<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/AAEEEFD0-3AF0-47DE-8EB2-24E21E8577AC_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2667\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65720\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Louis Vuitton<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/D1D95E02-3D30-4E09-8245-2BB6A060490D_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65721\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Off-White by Ib Kamara<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/mdx\/i\/2025\/05\/DB4098E4-C2B1-4A43-8009-1E399E789632_1_201_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65722\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits\">Zoot suits<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220; Superfine: Tailoring Black Style Maps Out Identity Through Dandyism This year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had the daunting task of looking at three centuries of Black fashion through the lens of dandyism, revealing how tailoring and design have shaped Black identity across the Atlantic diaspora. Located in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":65736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2130,2701,1538,4262],"tags":[700,301,2554,702],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65705"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65738,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65705\/revisions\/65738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/mdx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}