“My understanding of the power and performance of clothing crystallized long before I entered the world of fashion. A white friend, visiting me in Atlanta, marveled at the style of Black people in the city. He had noticed something I had always known: our singular ability to ‘stand out,’ to show ourselves ‘when the occasion demands it, and, more revealing still, often when it does not.’”
With these words, photographer Tyler Mitchell opens his chapter, “Portrait of Modern Dandyism,” in Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, published in conjunction with the Met’s exhibition, spotlighted at the Met Gala this past May. Born in Atlanta and now based in Brooklyn, represented by Gagosian, Mitchell brings to life the visual universe of this striking volume in collaboration with stylist Carlos Nazario.
The 372-page book, enriched with archival images, unfolds a powerful aesthetic and stylistic language through portraits, objects, stagings, and figurations that renew the representations of Black society in the United States.
Elegant gentlemen
“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” organized by the Met’s Costume Institute, is the department’s first exhibition dedicated to menswear in over 20 years. It is divided into twelve sections defining Black dandyism and exploring the importance of dress in shaping Black identities across the Atlantic diaspora. Clothing, paintings, photographs, decorative arts, literature, and film probe this cultural and historical phenomenon from 1780 to the present.
Tyler Mitchell’s photographic approach highlights both individuality and a collective of gentlemen as “a source of pride, joy, community, and camaraderie.” His creative process, often staged in bucolic landscapes and domestic interiors, produces vibrant, theatrical compositions. Each draws the eye, evoking a refined wardrobe and an astonishing imagination—reconstructed today by engaged artists. Figures include Virgil Abloh, who transcended the world of fashion; filmmakers Steve McQueen, Jordan Peele, and Ryan Coogler; and predecessors of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s such as Isaac Hayes, Gordon Parks, and Spike Lee.
Having turned thirty this past April, Tyler Mitchell belongs to a new generation of visual creators reexamining the codes and perspectives of Black subjects: “free, expressive, natural, and sensitive.” He made his name as the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue US—the September 2018 issue featuring Beyoncé—breaking more than a century of precedent at the magazine.
A history of style
The book and exhibition are inspired by Monica L. Miller’s 2009 work, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Miller, serving here as guest curator, traces the roots of Black dandyism back to eighteenth-century England during the slave trade. “Luxury slaves” distinguished themselves through originality and extravagance in their uniforms. The exhibition frames Black dandyism as both a cultural statement and an act of protest—spanning the abolition of slavery, segregation, the Harlem Renaissance, Black Power, contemporary cosmopolitan art, and Black Lives Matter.
“Dandyism may seem frivolous, but it challenges, even transcends, social and cultural hierarchies,” Miller affirmed at the opening in May. “The title refers to ‘superfine’ not only as the quality of a particular fabric—‘superfine wool’—but also as a particular attitude tied to feeling good in one’s body, in clothes that express one’s identity.”
Among the twelve sections, “Disguise” examines dress as a marker of individuality, especially for enslaved people. “Champion” looks at the role of the “uniform” and how sportswear both reinforced stereotypes and provided a pathway to distinction and style-icon status. “Beauty” celebrates the confidence and splendor of 1970s and 80s style, when Black communities transformed social invisibility into prideful hypervisibility. “Cool” investigates the evolution of casual style that revolutionized dress in the 1960s–80s, reshaping workwear and leisurewear through cardigans, tracksuits, and denim.
Among the invited contributors, artist-aesthete Iké Udé occupies a central place. Featured on the cover of Miller’s book, he also revives in the exhibition the figure of Julius Soubise, one of the most famous free Black men of the eighteenth century, whose style and conduct challenged the social norms of London. Udé also authored the epilogue of the Superfine catalogue, sketching the portrait of a dandy through a series of aphorisms as principles for life.
Self-affirmation
Tyler Mitchell’s photographs reclaim and reinterpret the history of Black fashion archives and Black masculinity across time and space. “My goal was not only to depict visions of deep camaraderie, beauty, and joy—even though that would have been a worthy pursuit in itself—but also to explore how Black people have appropriated and transformed classical European fashion into something distinctly their own.”
The book deepens the exhibition with thirty essays by leading thinkers, artists, and cultural voices. Miller revisits, for instance, the story of Olaudah Equiano (also known as Gustavus Vassa), whose eighteenth-century memoir recounts his journey from enslavement in Africa at age eleven, through the Caribbean and colonial Virginia, to his eventual purchase of freedom. “I spent more than eight pounds of my own money to buy a fancy suit so I could dance into my freedom.” The quotation reflects the path by which “an African becomes Black, British, and diasporic.”
As Tyler Mitchell aptly notes: “Whether wearing a color-coordinated tracksuit perfectly matched to a New Era cap, or a perfectly tailored suit complete with cufflinks, tie clip, and a sharply curved brimmed hat, Black people have long understood the transformative power of clothing and the stories it tells about who we are.”
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through October 26, 2025. The 372-page catalogue, available for $75, is published by the Met and distributed by Yale University Press.
