Black Dandyism to take centre stage at Met Gala 2025

Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have revealed the theme for the next Met Gala and The Costume Institute’s associated spring 2025 exhibition, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’.

The gala will take place at its usual time slot, the first Monday of May, this time landing on May 5. Star-studded attendees of the event will be asked to particularly draw inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, ‘Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity’, which will also influence the exhibition.

This year’s co-chairs for the event have been named as Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams, with honorary chair to be LeBron James, who will all reside their positions alongside Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

From May 10, days after the upcoming Met Gala is to be held, to October 26, 2025, visitors to the museum will also be able to explore and dive into the background of the Black Dandy, from the figures' emergence during 18th century Europe to 21st-century interpretations.

Black dandyism as an ‘evolving sartorial mode’

The term ‘dandy’ refers to an individual who “studies” to dress elegantly and fashionably. The fashion trend had initially been imposed on Black men in 18th-century Europe resulting in “dandified servants”, the Met said in a release. This later became a tool for Black people to employ both clothing and a certain personality in transforming their given identities and explore new ways of embodying political and social possibilities in the Black Atlantic world.

The exhibition will therefore tell the stories of these stylish Black individuals, organising through a series of characteristics that portray Black dandyism as an “evolving sartorial mode”. Alongside art and other forms of media, the exhibition will feature historical garments and accessories as well as contemporary garments by designers working in both the US and Europe.

Miller, who is to also serve as a guest curator for the exhibition, said on the theme: “Fashion and dress have been used in a contest of power and aesthetics for Black people from the time of enslavement to the present, and dandyism has long served as a vehicle through which one can manipulate the relationship between clothing, identity, and power.

“The history of Black dandyism illustrates how Black people have transformed from being enslaved and stylized as luxury items, acquired like any other signifier of wealth and status, to autonomous, self-fashioning individuals who are global trendsetters.

“This exhibition will explore concepts that define Black dandyism specifically and uncover elements of productive tension that appear when considering the figure—such as ownership, authority and self-possession, ease, exaggeration, freedom, transgression, dissonance, and spectacularity. It will also highlight the aesthetic playfulness that the dandy engenders and the ways in which sartorial experimentation gestures at both assimilation and distinction—all while telling a story about self and society.”