The History Behind The Met Gala's Black Dandy Theme & Notes On The ‘New Negro'

Forbes

30-04-2025

Michael Henry Adams, Abdou Ndoye, Craig Shimirimana, Von Penn Jr, Dandy Wellington, Grailing King, ... More Lamine Seck, Serigne Sene, and Iké Udé photographed by Tyler Mitchell (@tylersphotos), 'The Dinner Party,' 2025. Via Instagram @metmuseum.
Every year on the first Monday in May, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City hosts the Met Gala, officially known as the Costume Institute Benefit. This annual fundraising event supports the museum's Costume Institute, and in 2024 alone, it raised $26 million. Each year, each gala revolves around a theme, with past moments including 'Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty (2023)', 'The Garden of Time (2024),' and the widely acclaimed 'Notes on Camp (2019)'.
On Wednesday, October 9, 2024, the Met revealed the theme for the Costume Institute's spring 2025 exhibition: 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.' In anticipation, Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, Global Director of Condé Nast, and longtime Met Gala co-chair, shared that Vogue has been developing a parallel tribute. This project honors the exhibition's core themes of menswear, identity, history, and the diverse expressions of the Black dandy in fashion.
Dandyism, itself, is a literary and refined yet artistic self-presentation. Mostly seen in men in the 18th century during the 1790s revolution periods, a "dandy" was specific about his grooming and attire, from his hair and skin to his tailored suit and the cane that complemented his distinctive walk.
This year's theme was inspired by Monica L. Miller's novel 'Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. ' The book notes that "Black Dandyism" was adopted by enslaved Africans during the Atlantic Slave Trade, drawing on the refined aesthetics of the 18th-century European man. Enslaved people, purchased as "luxury property" yet denied the lens of being seen as luxurious, redefined the concept through intellectualism, rebellion, and the graceful assimilation of their diverse identities from the earliest days of their mixed heritage.
For wealthy Europeans, owning or employing a well-dressed Black servant was considered a status symbol, a living spectacle of wealth and power. Even dressing up said enslaved servant to sit for a portrait, because one could afford to do so, signaled wealth and sophistication. While modern portrayals of enslaved people in film and television often show them in tattered clothing, servant uniforms, or no clothing at all, Monica L. Miller reminds us that, 'The spiritual has always had a sartorial dimension for Black people in America, as many slaves were allowed to dress in their finest clothes but once a week, on Sunday.'
In the Met Museum, onlookers can picture this, 'Bélizaire and the Frey Children, ca. 1837' in which Belizaire, an enslaved Afro-Creole teenager poses in a portrait, wearing a tailored beige carrick coat, billowy blouse, and cravat next to his enslavers. More notably, 'Portrait of a Youth in an Embroidered Vest' (1785) by French painter Marie-Victoire Lemoine can be seen in the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, dressed in a stunning silver collarless justacorps and embroidered waistcoat, his hair, cut at the correct length to produce a shape moderately in style for the 1780s. Miller attests to her own reference image, " an eighteenth-century oil painting of an unnamed black boy dressed in a bright red jacket, gold collar, and padlock about his neck."
(French, 1754–1820). Portrait of a Youth in an Embroidered Vest, 1785. Oil on canvas; 65.1 x 54.6cm ... More (25 ⅝ x 21 ½ in). Jacksonville, FL:
Attributed to Jacques Guillame Lucein Amans, 'Bélizaire and the Frey Children,' c. 1837, Oil on ... More canvas, 54.5 x 43.5 inches, Private Collection
While enslaved Africans were stripped of their native languages, customs, families, records, and identities, there was a reckoning: a quiet negotiation or unspoken compromise that began to reshape how identity and physical self-expression could survive under enslavement. In 'Virginia in 1732: The Travel Journal of William Hugh Grove,' the traveler tells his interactions with enslaved African boys, noting how identity was still being venerated through style: 'Some had beads about their necks, arms, and waists, and a rag or piece of leather the bigness of a fig leaf.' Though not considered proper clothing, these accessories held the power of memory.
Grove continues, mentioning that these adornments came 'from a place of autonomy, as the only material retention from former lives in Africa.'
This instance of using heretical emblems or culturally inscriptive materials—often subtle or hidden—has long served as a quiet rebellion against the erasure of Black memory. This strategy of resistance continues to shape Black fashion today. Assimilation, whether forced or chosen, was never fully achieved in the eyes of colonizers or slaveholders, because there was always a trace of African heritage or, in more recent times, urban cultural identity, woven in to subvert and complicate the idea of complete assimilation. Meaning, that European standards of living or dressing were never truly embraced or replicated but rather adopted and manipulated.
Indeterminacy meets at the intersection of sexuality, race, politics, and economic structure that is Black Dandyism, marking its inherently performative nature. This performance was expressed not only through its 'made-you-look' charm but also in the speech patterns and tonal nuances of formerly enslaved people following the Emancipation Proclamation. Their flamboyance was a public assertion of freedom, particularly in the north of the United States, where many migrated to reinvent and present themselves following freedom. It was not just about identity, but about presenting choice; a declaration of visibility, dignity, and a self-defined presence in a world that had once denied them of it.
circa 1890: A young man wearing a formal suit and top hat. (Photo by)
Once settling in the north, the performance power of the blues and jazz took off, many Black performers dressed up dapper and clean. In the early 1900s, Black performers often encountered dress code restrictions and had to acclimate their garments to fit the demands of their audiences, particularly in minstrel shows and vaudeville performances. While white performers centered modesty for their performance outfits, mostly wearing three-piece suits with high-collared white shirts, neckties, and derby or bowler hats, Black performers wore exaggerated costumes, including elaborate hats, vests, and worked brighter colors, patterns, and textures into their attire. They often paired them with pocket watches, canes, and monocles, which was supposed to signal sophistication at that time.
Once the Harlem Renaissance was birthed in the 1920s, Black Dandyism was fully realized, and so was the idea of the "Black intellectual." In the 1920s, "Harlem became the epicenter of Black intellectual and artistic thought. Figures like Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, and Zora Neale Hurston were breaking barriers with their literary and artistic contributions," writes Ty Gaskins in Vogue. And that literary recognition also translated over to style, fully conceptualizing what it meant to dress and appear as a Black intellectual. This meant ridding of this idea of the "Old Negro" made to be a myth and less than a memory.
Jazz Musician Duke Ellington Carrying Horns and Drum
In the 'New Negro (1925)' by Harlem philosopher Alaine Locke, he writes "In the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being, something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be "kept down," or "in his place," or "helped up," to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden." In this metamorphosis, he introduces this concept of the "new negro" a phrase used heavily throughout the Harlem Renaissance, "The Negro playwright, musician, actor, dancer, and artist in concert shall fashion a drama that will merit the respect and admiration of America,' he writes. 'Such an institution must come from the Negro himself, as he alone can truly express the soul of his people.'He continues, 'The race must surrender that childish self-consciousness that refuses to face the facts of its own life in the arts, but prefers the blandishments of flatterers, who render all efforts at true artistic expression a laughing-stock by adorning their characters with the gaudy gowns of cheap romance.'
On style, Alain Locke argues that the 'New Negro' should strive to align their intellectual power with a modern identity: 'It has been their achievement also to bring the artistic advance of the Negro sharply into stepping alignment with contemporary artistic thought, mood, and style. They are thoroughly modern, some of them ultra-modern, and Negro thoughts now wear the uniform of the age.' This vision comes to life in the image of not only in the theoretical but in the physical with the sharp suit, polished shoes, glasses, and bow ties—worn by intellectuals of the era, including the iconic queer writer James Baldwin.
A Harlemite and a student of the world, Baldwin's style was shaped by both his travels across Europe and his upbringing in the ghettos of New York. It's corduroy coats with shearling trim, fur hats, and terrycloth polos. It's a patterned scarf worn in place of a tie—romantic, feminine, and très cool. Baldwin was fluent in the language of bourgeois respectability and dressed the part when the occasion called for it. Yet, as a sharp critic of white supremacy and middle-class conventions, he also knew how to bend the rules of dressing—subtly reshaping his look to reflect a style that was unmistakably his own.
American novelist and activist James Baldwin (1924 – 1987, left) with friends, USA, October 1963. ... More (Photo by Mario Jorrin/Pix/Michael)
This mix of high tailoring, symbolizing the sharp edge of intellect, with the funk, flair, and rich history of Black style has been well documented. It can be seen in unexpected places, such as the 1970s to 1990s era of New York's iconic pimps, who moved through both street and business worlds in expertly tailored suits. These looks were often personalized with elements of urban flair: scarves, patterned hats, oversized ties, or medallions.
It's been seen in acts like OutKast, who would show up to red carpet events in colorful, patterned tailored suits—accessorized with classic hip-hop staples like chains, newsboy hats, and sneakers. It's also evident in everyday performers, including Met Gala host Janelle Monáe, who first introduced her public persona in a tailored suit. Monáe says, 'I consider myself a free-ass motherfucker. And when I'm in my suit, that is exactly how I feel.' She continues, 'I feel like I am showing you a new way to think about clothing and to think about values and to think about what you stand for, what you don't stand for, and the kind of person you want to represent as you walk this earth.'
Andre 3000 and Big Boi of OutKast during 44th GRAMMY Awards - Arrivals at Staples Center in Los ... More Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
Dapper Dan, widely recognized as a modern Black dandy, rose to prominence by elevating 1980-90s Black culture through his excessive use of logos and luxury labels, which he printed onto suits, trunks, and outerwear. He redefined refined style, balancing sophistication with an undeniable sense of cool, creating a fusion that resonated deeply with the Black community. "The way I came into dandyism is through this process of transformation. I'm from the poorest neighborhood in Harlem, right by the banks of the Harlem River. Everybody in my little enclave was all poor," he said. "We had rats and roaches. Goodwill was our Macy's. Whenever I was lucky and fortunate enough to have something to wear, I went to 125th Street. Nobody went there who wasn't dressed. At 125th Street, nobody knew I had rats, nobody knew I had roaches, and that for me was the birth of dandyism because I saw the power of transformation that could take place with your clothes."