Met Gala makes history with exclusive focus on Black men’s fashion

By Curtis Bunn, NBC

For the first time at the glamorous Met Gala in New York, Black men — their style, expression, elegance, creativity and versatility — will be on full display. 

Using as inspiration the 2009 bestselling book, “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Disasporic Identity” by Monica L. Miller, Monday night’s theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” opens the door for Black men to demonstrate their versatile and globally influential fashion sense on the red carpet during fashion’s big night. 

“Black style is really related to thinking about how fashion and power connect,” Miller said in a YouTube video about making Vogue’s Met Gala issue. “The way that people are styled or fashioned or fashioned themselves in response to the degree of agency that they feel.” 

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While the dandy was an 18th- century term for a man who is meticulously dressed and appreciates the finer things in life, these days dandyism inspires myriad definitions. The dozens of Black actors, athletes, entertainers and other celebrities in the Vogue video described dandyism as everything from “Black excellence” to “confidence” to “expression.” 

Black dandyism, which reaches at least as far back as the Harlem Renaissance from 1918 to the mid-1930s, celebrated life in times that were not socially or politically celebratory for Black people. 

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At the Met Gala, the fashion world will take in and celebrate Black dandyism and its many contributions to high fashion, a departure for an industry where Black culture has historically been underrepresented. 

Learn more about the fashion and exhibit.

Discover another exhibit about the fashion of the African diaspora.

More Black culture news.