Who could be better than Sir Lewis Hamilton and Pharrell Williams to help reveal the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”?
The Formula One racer and Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director were front and center Wednesday morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the official big reveal. The pair are also serving as cochairs of next year’s Met Gala along with A$AP Rocky, Colman Domingo and Condé Nast’s chief content officer and global editorial director Anna Wintour, who also attended the media preview. The National Basketball Association’s Lebron James will act as honorary chair of what is the Costume Institute’s annual fundraiser, which will be held on May 5.
“Superfine” will open to the public on May 10 and will run through Oct. 26, 2025, and will explore the importance and sartorial style of Black identities in the African diaspora from Enlightenment Europe during the 18th century to current times. It will highlight incarnations of this style and attitude interpretations in New York, Paris, London and other cosmopolitan places, according to The Met’s chief executive officer Max Hollein. Per the Oxford English Dictionary, a dandy is “one who studies above everything to dress elegantly and fashionably.”
Williams said, “As an artist, who was literally born and raised in the shadow, where the African diaspora expanded into the country that would become America, celebrating an exhibit on Black dandyism and the African diaspora is really a full circle moment. It’s literally a dream.”
He added, “We are the survivors of what is perhaps the most intense hardships, trials and tribulations. Not only did we survive, we carried the music, the culture, the beauty and the universal language across the ocean over a quadruple century. We kept it as ours and what is more amazing is that we gave it back to the world, and we continue to. And that’s what the Met Gala will celebrate — our gift, our history, our resilience, our beauty, our style, our strength, our authorship — and be clear: We are fine and dandy, and what a wonder we are to behold. We are a museum.”
Another synergistic element to Wednesday’s event is Louis Vuitton’s sponsorship of the show. Condé Nast International will also be supporting again, as in years past. Tyler Mitchell, who at 23 became the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover in 2018 with an image of Beyoncé, will shoot the show’s illustrated catalogue. Yale University Press will distribute that internationally. Another sign of “Superfine’s” global scope will be having the acclaimed chef Kwame Onwuachi handle the Met Gala’s menu. The artist Cy Gain will oversee the creative direction for the decor concept alongside Derek McLane and Raúl Àvila.
Another key attendee Wednesday was Monica L. Miller, whose 2009 book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” was a source of inspiration for the show. Miller, who will be the show’s guest curator, said that whether the dandy is subtle or spectacular, “we recognize the deliberateness of the dress, the self-conscious display the way in which this reach for perfection might seem frivolous, but can pose a challenge to, or signal the transcendence of social and cultural hierarchies.”
Noting how in the 18th century dandyism could be a vehicle of enslavement and liberation, she said, “It was also imposed upon and then quickly taken up by Black people swept into the political realities of time — the slave trade, colonization, imperialism, revolution and liberation. Dandified servants, then known as ‘luxury slaves,’ were used as figures of conspicuous consumption. As such, they immediately learned the effects of dressing elegantly and fashionably, and its relationship to race and power. This exhibition explores the dialectic between being dandified and taking on dandyism as a means of self-fashioning. In the show, Black dandyism is a sartorial style that asks questions about identity, representation, race, gender, class, gender, sexuality and power.”
“Dandyism was initially imposed on Black men in 18th century Europe as the Atlantic slave trade and an emerging culture of consumerism created a trend of fashionably dressed, or dandified, servants. Dandyism offered Black people an opportunity to use clothing, gesture, irony, and wit to transform their given identities and imagine new ways of embodying political and social possibilities,” according to advance material for “Superfine.”
During his remarks, Hamilton referenced Miller’s book and how Black people have used clothing as a form of protection and self expression. By cochairing The Met Gala, he hopes to extend his efforts to amplify unrepresented voices. Hamilton spoke of how what one wears can “combat pre-conceived notions with humanity and dignity. I know the power of representation and how fashion can be a vehicle to push forward for diversity and to celebrate the differences. I’m excited to celebrate Black history and the creatives represented in this exhibition to show that inclusion and creativity go hand-in-hand.”
Menswear will be the focus in the spring exhibition, when it bows on May 10.
The exhibition will be the first one to spotlight menswear since “Bravehearts: Men in Skirts,” which was the Costume Institute’s curator in charge Andrew Bolton’s first one for The Met in 2003.
On Wednesday, Bolton told WWD, “I meant it when I said menswear is having a moment. It’s being led by people like Lewis, Pharrell and by Black designers, who are thinking about their pasts and their heritages. But they are translating that into a way that is so relevant to the ties in which we live in. It’s an evolving history and what’s important for us is to contextualize Black dandyism from the mid-18th century.”
“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” is also an opportunity for The Met to further diversify its programming, collection and audience, which is what internal and external entities called on the museum to do following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Attracting a wider range of visitors especially younger ones and communities of color is something that The Met “is very conscious of and has been doing for a while,” Bolton said. “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism,” an exhibition that wrapped up in July, is an example of how the museum has been telling untold stories that involve race, according to Bolton.
As for those who will wonder what took so long for the museum to focus on Black style, Bolton said that while he was working on the 2021 show “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” he was struck by how historically minded the Black designers who were featured in the exhibition were. “They had a real sense of the history of Black representation. Also, we didn’t understand the Black dandyism yet,” Bolton said. “I’ve also been wanting to do a show that focuses on race for a while. But I wanted it to make sense for The Met and the Costume Institute. To do a show on hip-hop would not make sense at The Met, because we don’t have a street style collection. But we do have a great collection of high-style menswear.”
A livery driver’s embellished purple velvet waistcoat and jacket with one of Grace Wales Bonner’s blue velvet ensembles from fall 2015.
A smattering of pieces that will be part of “Superfine” were displayed Wednesday including a livery driver’s purple silk velvet jacket and waistcoat trimmed with gold galloon from 1840, Grace Wales Bonner’s embellished blue velvet “Aime” ensemble from the fall 2015 Wales Bonner collection, Labrum London’s “Maya Angelou Passport suit,” and a Louis Vuitton ensemble of blue, green and black wool jacquard from Williams’ spring 2025.
While doing a show on Black dandyism connects the theme to the Costume Institute’s collection, it also tells the “absent story of dandyism and shows the contributions of many Black men of style to the history of dandyism,” Bolton said.