The theme for the 2025 Met Gala has officially been revealed. The Met Gala – held each year in New York City on the first Monday in May – is a star-studded fundraiser that supports the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. On Wednesday, October 9, Vogue announced the Costume Institute’s upcoming spring 2025 exhibit, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.
” According to Vogue , the exhibition draws inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. The museum’s exhibit will feature “garments, paintings, photographs, and more – all exploring the indelible style of Black men in the context of dandyism, from the 18th-century through present day.
” Miller noted that “dandys” were men from the 1780s who “paid distinct, and sometimes excessive attention to dress.” According to the Oxford Dictionary, a “dandy” is “a man who cares a lot about his clothes and appearance.” Dandyism is both an identity and concept.
“In the 18th century, dandyism could be both a vehicle of enslavement and liberation. It was also imposed upon and quickly taken up by Black people swept up into the political realities of the time,” Miller said at a Costume Institute press conference on Wednesday. “This exhibiton, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,’ explores the dialectic between being dandified and taking on dandyism as a means for self-fashioning.
In the show, Black dandyism is a sa.
