Talking black excellence over cocktails inside the Met Gala
The show was guest curated by Monica L Miller, chair of the Africana studies department at Barnard College, whose 2009 book inspired the collection.
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Indian Express
08-05-2025
- Indian Express
The book behind the Met Gala: Monica L Miller's ‘Slaves to Fashion' and the politics of Black Dandyism
When Monica L Miller published Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity in 2009, few could have predicted that her academic study of Black style, identity, and resistance would one day shape the theme of fashion's most closely watched event. But this year, the Met Gala — known as much for its couture spectacle as for its cultural references — turned to Miller's work for inspiration, putting Black dandyism centre stage. Held annually to benefit the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Met Gala has in recent years looked to literature for thematic cues. In 2024, JG Ballard's 1962 short story 'The Garden of Time' offered a meditation on beauty, decay, and temporal fragility. This year, Miller, a professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, served as an inspiration. Published by Duke University Press, Slaves to Fashion examines how, from Enlightenment England to contemporary culture, Black men have appropriated the codes of high fashion, often born from European colonial contexts, to construct alternative, powerful identities. 'Dandyism is by definition an act of refusal to fit into or even accept given or typical categories of identity,' Miller said during remarks at the Gala's press preview, as quoted in the Vogue. The book — which received the 2010 William Sanders Scarborough Prize for the best book in African American literature and culture from the Modern Language Association (MLA) and was shortlisted for the 2010 Modernist Studies Association Book Prize — maps a lineage of style that includes Julius Soubise, an 18th-century freedman who wore diamond-buckled, red-heeled shoes; American sociologist W E B Du Bois, who embraced the aesthetic in his youth; and contemporary figures such as rappers Sean Combs aka Diddy and André 3000. Yinka Shonibare, the Afro-British artist known for the photographic suite, 'Diary of a Victorian Dandy', also features in Miller's analysis. The dandy's wardrobe becomes, in Miller's reading, a site of cultural reclamation. 'Luxury slaves,' as they were once called in 18th-century England, were Black servants styled in aristocratic garb by their masters. But, Miller shows how these individuals subverted these symbols . 'Tweaking and reworking their uniforms,' she writes, they carved out new new class identities. On June 3, Yale University Press will release, 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style', a hardcover companion book for this year's Met gala. It has been authored by Miller, who is the guest curator for this year's exhibition, and Costume Institute Curator in Charge, Andrew Bolton. The book traces the legacy of Black menswear across three centuries —from hip-hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement. As conversations about race, representation, and cultural appropriation continue to evolve in art and fashion, the two books are a study on how style can speak volumes. Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
Indian Express
06-05-2025
- Indian Express
This Word Means: Black Dandyism
Why today? The theme of this year's Met Gala — followed specially in India this time as Shah Rukh Khan made his debut on its red carpet — is 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style', which honours 'Black dandyism'. What is the Met Gala? The Met Gala is organised by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or The Met. Its website talks about this year's theme thus, 'In the 18th-century Atlantic world, a new culture of consumption, fueled by the slave trade, colonialism, and imperialism, enabled access to clothing and goods that indicated wealth, distinction, and taste. Black dandyism sprung from the intersection of African and European style traditions. How is this year's theme significant? Superfine: Tailoring Black Style explores the importance of style to the formation of Black identities in the Atlantic diaspora, particularly in the United States and Europe.' The theme is inspired by the 2009 book 'Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity' by Monica L Miller. The exhibition on the Superfine theme is organised into 12 sections, such as Champion, Respectability, Heritage, Beauty, and Cosmopolitanism. 'Together, these characteristics demonstrate how one's self-presentation is a mode of distinction and resistance—within a society impacted by race, gender, class, and sexuality,' the Met's website says. What is Black dandyism? A 'dandy' is basically a well-dressed male. Not just someone who buys and wears expensive clothes, but who dresses with intention, as a way of self-expression, even if that expression is simply vanity. However, in the case of Black people in the 'Atlantic diaspora', dressing was a highly political act. When they were brought to the USA or the UK as slaves, African people were stripped of their native clothes. They were either made to dress in standard-issue, impersonal uniforms or ostentatiously dressed up as an expression of their owners' wealth or status. The Blackface minstrel tradition had white men dressed in suits and painting their faces Black to entertain other White people. The slaves tried to bring in small elements of personalisation in their uniforms too, by the odd button or embroidery here and there. But once they were emancipated, clothing for the slaves either became a way of declaring their newfound visibility as free individuals, as opposed to a dehumanised herd of slaves, or a way to blend in and not attract much attention, which too often turned violent. Thus, a Black man in a three-piece suit was not always declaring his prosperity, but also trying to look the White-accepted version of respectable. In the midst of this, Black dandyism became a way of proclamation of identity, of arrival, and of ownership. For example, the fashion that emerged from the Harlem Renaissance was vibrant, colourful, loud, unapologetic and fearless in attracting attention. It is this spirit that the Met Gala seeks to celebrate.
Deccan Herald
06-05-2025
- Deccan Herald
Talking black excellence over cocktails inside the Met Gala
The show was guest curated by Monica L Miller, chair of the Africana studies department at Barnard College, whose 2009 book inspired the collection.
