The stars strolling the red carpet this year will honour an exhibit theme with rich background. Using the idea of Dandyism, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” is a cultural and historical study of Black style over 300 years told via clothing, accessories, paintings, photography, and decorative arts. Expect the same kinds of motifs on the red carpet, much as Black Dandyism is about vivid, vibrant, spectacular patterns.
What is Black Dandyism?
Fashion is way of life for a Black Dandy. The Dandyism culture dates back to the 1700s, when “a trend of fashionably dressed or dandyfied servants,” author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, Monica L. Miller, notes on the museum’s website.
Black Dandyism emerged from a fashion and self-expression driven attempt to earn fundamental respect in a racist and biassed society. says Peter K. Andersson via email, author of The Dandy: A People’s History of Sartorial Splendour. “White Dandies have been ostracised and derided as well in various ways, but for Black Dandies the Dandyism has almost always been accompanied by the added dimension of cruel racism, special treatment and discrimination,” he adds.
Andersson quotes researcher Zine Magubane, who detailed the loud Black Dandyism in the 19th century clothes as a rejection of “the posture of silence” expected of Black people by white racists.
Black Dandyism in culture
Long suit coats with shoulder pads worn over baggy dress pants were well-known among Black males, jazz musicians and activists and came to represent resistance.
Starting in Harlem, New York, in the 1930s, “it is considered the first uniquely American suit,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Clarissa Esguerra told the Los Angeles Times from costume and textile standpoint. Other minority groups began wearing zoot suits, and the striking designs made Chicanos a target of racial violence in Los Angeles, 1940s, while fabric was being rationed during World War II.
Black Dandyism is not only a phenomena from America.
Around the same time, groups of young South African males known as tsotsis gained recognition in Apartheid-era Johannesburg for sporting tight bottomed trousers and copying the looks of American movie stars. Zoot suits also became rather fashionable. Fashion contests featured South African Black Dandies called as swenkas.
Scholar Daouda Coulibaly writes on The Conversation Black Dandies known as Sapeurs flaunt their stuff in parades, dating back to the 1970s when the children of Congolese families went to study in Paris and brought back the newest styles.
Black Dandyism today
Black Dandies in the 19th and early 20th centuries asserted their dignity by sporting bespoke attire, as Vogue observed, to prove they fit in. Black Dandies of the 21st century use striking colours and designs to demonstrate their not only survival but also thriving nature. “The accoutrements of an outstandingly dressed Black man, a Dandy, to be sure,” Essence notes André 3000’s green button down shirt with white suspeners in the 2003 “Hey Ya!” music video.
Modern-day Dandy “icons” in entertainment include this year’s Met Gala co-chairs A$AP Rocky, Pharrell, Colman Domingo, and committee member André 3000, according the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).
Dandyism to A$AP Rocky is appreciating pearls, kilts, barrettes, furs, and Saint Laurent clothes. Pharrell is particularly notable for his manner he combines luxury design with streetwear, so much so Louis Vuitton appointed him a creative director.
And with Oscar contender Colman Domingo’s 2024 Met Gala outfit, which has a long white cloak and flowy black dress pants, the actor “redefined Hollywood’s approach to menswear,” says the CFDA. Monday as celebs arrive on the 2025 Met Gala red carpet will show just how they view that redefining.
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