Latest news with #SlavesToFashion:BlackDandyismAndTheStylingOfBlackDiasporicIdentity
The Star
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
This year's Met Gala fashion exhibit also spotlights emerging designers
When the email came from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacques Agbobly at first didn't quite believe it. The Brooklyn-based fashion designer had only been in the business for five years. Now, one of the world's top museums was asking for two of his designs to be shown in "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style', the exhibit launched by the starry Met Gala. "I was just floored with excitement,' Agbobly said in an interview. "I had to check to make sure it was from an official email. And then the excitement came, and I was like… am I allowed to say anything to anyone about it?' Agbobly grew up in Togo, watching seamstresses and tailors create beautiful garments in part of the family home that they rented out. Studying fashion later in New York, the aspiring designer watched the Met Gala carpet from afar and dreamed of one day somehow being part of it. "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style' is the first Costume Institute exhibit to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years devoted to menswear. Read more: An early look at the Met Gala fashion exhibition exploring Black dandyism Unlike past shows that highlighted the work of very famous designers like Karl Lagerfeld or Charles James, this exhibit includes a number of up-and-coming designers like Agbobly. "The range is phenomenal,' said guest curator Monica L Miller, a Barnard College professor whose book, Slaves To Fashion: Black Dandyism And The Styling Of Black Diasporic Identity , is a foundation for the show. "It's super exciting to showcase the designs of these younger and emerging designers,' Miller added, who offered a look the show over the weekend before its unveiling at Monday's Met Gala (May 5), "And to see the way they've been thinking about Black representation across time and across geography.' The exhibit covers Black style over several centuries, but the unifying theme is dandyism, and how designers have expressed that ethos through history. For Agbobly, dandyism is "about taking space". "As a Black designer, as a queer person, a lot of it is rooted in people telling us who we should be or how we should act… dandyism really goes against that. It's about showing up and looking your best self and taking up space and announcing that you're here,' he explained. The exhibit, which opens to the public May 10, begins with its own definition: someone who "studies above everything else to dress elegantly and fashionably.' Miller has organised it into 12 conceptual sections: Ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, champion, respectability, jook, heritage, beauty, cool and cosmopolitanism. The "ownership' section begins with two livery coats worn by enslaved people. One of them, from Maryland, looks lavish and elaborate, in purple velvet trimmed with gold metallic threading. The garments were intended to show the wealth of their owners. In other words, Miller says, the enslaved themselves were items of conspicuous consumption. The other is a livery coat of tan broadcloth, likely manufactured by Brooks Brothers and worn by an enslaved child or adolescent boy in Louisiana just before the Civil War. Elsewhere, there's a contemporary, glittering ensemble by British designer Grace Wales Bonner, made of crushed silk velvet and embroidered with crystals and the cowrie shells historically used as currency in Africa. There's also a so-called "dollar bill suit' by the label 3Paradis – the jacket sporting a laminated one-dollar bill stitched to the breast pocket, meant to suggest the absence of wealth. The "disguise' section includes a collection of 19th-century newspaper ads announcing rewards for catching runaway enslaved people. The ads, Miller notes, would often describe someone who was "particularly fond of dress' – or note that the person had taken large wardrobes. The reason was twofold – the fancy clothes made it possible for an enslaved person to cloak their identity. But also, when they finally made it to freedom, they could sell the clothing to help fund their new lives, Miller says. "So dressing above one's station sometimes was a matter of life and death,' the curator said. "And also enabled people to transition from being enslaved to being liberated.' The contemporary part of this section includes striking embroidered jackets by the label Off-White that purposely play with gender roles – like displaying an ostensibly "male' jacket on a female mannequin. Stopping by a set of portraits from the early 19th century, as abolitionism was happening in the North, Miller explained that the subjects are Black men who were successful, well off enough to commission or sit for portraits, and dressed "in the finest fashions of the day'. Like William Whipper, an abolitionist and wealthy lumber merchant who also founded a literary society. They represent the beginnings of a Black middle and upper middle class in America, Miller said. But she pointed out a group of racist caricatures in a case right across from the portraits. "Almost as soon as they are able to do this,' she said, referring to the portraits. "They are stereotyped and degraded.' WEB Du Bois, Miller pointed out, was not only a civil rights activist but also one of the best-dressed men in turn-of-the-century America. He travelled extensively overseas, which meant he needed "clothing befitting his status as a representative of Black America to the world'. Read more: What is dandyism? This bold fashion movement has long redefined elegance Objects in the display include receipts for tailors in London, and suit orders from Brooks Brothers or his Harlem tailor. There is also a laundry receipt from 1933 for cleaning of shirts, collars, and handkerchiefs. Also highlighted in this section: Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, writer, and statesman and also "the most photographed man of the 19th century'. The show includes his tailcoat of brushed wool, as well as a shirt embroidered with a "D' monogram, a top hat, a cane and a pair of sunglasses. One of Miller's favorite items in the heritage section is Agbobly's bright-coloured ensemble based on the hues of bags that West African migrants used to transport their belongings. Also displayed is Agbobly's denim suit embellished with crystals and beads. It's a tribute not only to the hairbraiding salons where the designer spent time as a child, but also the earrings his grandmother or aunts would wear when they went to church. Speaking of family, Agbobly said that he ultimately did tell them – and everyone – about his "pinch-me moment'. "Everyone knows about it,' the designer says. "I keep screaming. If I can scream on top of a hill, I will.' – AP
The Star
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
An early look at the Met Gala fashion exhibition exploring Black dandyism
Monica Miller in a back room of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum. She offers a sneak peek at the fashion exhibition exploring the influence of the Black dandy. Photo: The New York Times In the glare of camera flashes on the first Monday in May, it's easy to forget that the Met Gala isn't just an expensive-looking celebrity parade – it's also the opening celebration for a museum show. This year, the party will inaugurate 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style", an exhibition put on by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute that traces the influence of the Black dandy over 300 years. The exhibition investigates how dandyism, a style of elevated dress once imposed upon enslaved people, was remade by Black aesthetes into a tool of social mobility and self-definition. It might take the form of a tweedy three-piece suit, a disco-fabulous stage costume or a slouchy leather jacket printed with luxury logos. Those pieces and more than 200 others in the exhibition illustrate how Black dandies have wielded their clothing as instruments of both flair and function. Read more: 'From Savile Row to track suits': What to expect at this year's Met Gala 'Dandyism is a practice that's not just about clothing, dress, accessories,' said Monica L Miller, the guest curator of the exhibition and a professor of Africana studies at Barnard College. 'It's often about the strategic use of those things in particular political moments, around particular cultural nodes.' Miller, whose 2009 book, Slaves To Fashion: Black Dandyism And The Styling Of Black Diasporic Identity , inspired the exhibition, scoured historical societies, museums and private collections to find pieces that located Black dandyism at turning points in history. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Star
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
'Dandyism is a discipline': One man's take on style, identity and defying labels
Ike Ude will tell you that he is not a dandy, and that he wonders why Americans are so keen to categorise people. 'I don't think I should elect to call myself anything,' he said. If pressed, though, the elegant Ude, a New York artist born in Nigeria, will acknowledge that 'dandyism is a discipline', one that he does practice, even while refusing any label. Yet dandyism is all about refusal – of fixed identities, of mediocrity, of gender conventions, of the boundary between life and art. Dandyism blends literary and artistic creation with the art of personality, the careful cultivation of image and behaviour – all of which applies to Ude's practice. Ude, 60, has long enjoyed a reputation as a preeminent dandyist artist; in fact, his portrait appears on the cover of Slaves To Fashion: Black Dandyism And The Styling Of Black Diasporic Identity , the landmark 2009 study by Monica L Miller, a professor of Africana studies at Barnard College. Read more: 'From Savile Row to track suits': What to expect at this year's Met Gala The artist, who served as a special consultant on a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition on Black dandyism, understands the power of rejecting labels. Photo: The New York Times This season, Black dandyism – and Ude – are very much in the conversation. Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, invited Miller to help organise this spring's exhibition, 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style', which was inspired by her book. Ude served as a special consultant to the exhibition, a work of his appears in the show, and he also provided the catalogue's epilogue, written partly in dandyist aphorisms. He was also tapped to photograph a related cover story for Vogue 's May issue, a profile of actor and producer Colman Domingo, who is a co-chair of this year's Met Gala. Many tend to associate dandyism with white, European aesthetes of earlier centuries – men like Beau Brummell, Lord Byron, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde – who often produced art or literature, but also produced themselves : making social waves not by dint of noble birth, but through their carefully constructed personas, ironic wit and impeccable dress. Although less recognised, Black dandyism also dates to the 18th century, when, as Miller writes in her book: 'The Atlantic slave trade and the rise of a culture of consumption created a vogue in dandified Black servants.' But over time, she explains in a video announcing the exhibition, dandyism 'gave Black men and women an opportunity to use clothing, gesture, irony and wit to transform their identities'. At his Chelsea apartment and studio, Ude greeted me in one of his signature looks: pale khaki Bermuda shorts; vintage white oxfords; a fitted beige cotton blazer, discreetly striped in black and red; a crisp white shirt; and a silk neckerchief in chartreuse, black and red. As ever, Ude's hair rose in two hemispheres of springy curls, parted in the middle, giving the effect of a bifurcated crown. The space is at once spare and densely appointed, with minimal furniture and little evidence of food preparation, but abundant books (covering art, architecture, fashion and centuries of literature) as well as art, figurines and decorative objects of all kinds. A plastic model of a human heart sits on a shelf. Japanese dolls, dressed in tiny, exquisite kimonos, strike graceful poses. 'I love their sartorial fireworks,' Ude said. Ude's art is as densely alive as his home. He is renowned for his meticulously composed, colour-saturated theatrical photographic portraits of himself and others. 'Self-portraits' may not be quite the right term for those pictures featuring Ude, though, since he is not depicting 'himself'. Instead, he portrays a world of diverse, elaborately costumed characters, posed in complex, faintly surrealist tableaux, in visual conversation with curious objects (often added digitally): a gramophone, a butterfly net, even a bird sporting an expression as wryly self-composed as Ude's. Portraits of others pack similar visual punch, each subject presented as if the ruler of a miniature kingdom, styled sumptuously by Ude (after an 'intense Zoom session' during which he studies their look and personality), faces lit to heighten their sculptural drama. 'I just love seeing people beautiful,' he said. His ambitious 2016 series, 'Nollywood Portraits', consisted of 64 images of actors and directors working in the exploding Nigerian film industry, all vibrating in glowing jewel tones. Ude's current project, 'Amazing Graces: Portraits Of Eminent African American Women', is similarly ambitious, featuring 64 portraits of notable Black women with accomplishments in the worlds of business, philanthropy, the arts, politics and academia. The impetus? 'As a group, African American women are not terribly well represented aesthetically,' Ude said. 'When they're represented, in cinema, for example, it's a bit crude. They are like double minorities. Look at the role of African American women in Gone With The Wind .' With the series, he aims to 'establish an artistic and aesthetic standard that future generations can reference and use as a point of departure'. Read more: Met Gala 101: What to know about 'fashion's biggest night out' this year Famous figures already photographed in this lineup include actress Phylicia Rashad; her sister, choreographer, actress and director Debbie Allen; and diplomat Susan E Rice. Ude said that the series also represented 'a debt' to his mother, who died at just 54, pausing to show me an old photograph of a lovely woman in a 1950s-style taffeta dress. For Domingo's Vogue cover, Ude transformed the actor into a kind of dandy-cavalry officer, posed against an intensely crimson background, one hand on his hip. He wears slim-fitting red trousers and a cropped, double-breasted, black military-style jacket lined with gold buttons (both from Balmain), adorned with a Chanel brooch resembling a war medal. In one hand, Domingo clutches a pair of red kid gloves. In the other, instead of a sword or a riding crop, he holds a wilting red and yellow peony. 'I wanted to portray Colman as a contemporary version of a gentleman of a past epoch,' Ude said. Dandyism is about precisely such romanticism, the magic and art of envisioning and crafting a life – whether in reality, fiction or, somehow, both at once. Before the interview ended, Ude showed a photo of himself, taken in the 1980s. In it, he wears a monocle. 'People would ask if it was a prescription lens,' he said. 'I would say, Yes, for aesthetic vision.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Star
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
How fashion is self-expression – and scrutiny – for Black men in the US
Growing up on the south side of Chicago, the reverend Dr Howard-John Wesley was given the message early on: What one wore as a Black man mattered. Wesley's pastor father, who migrated from Louisiana after World War II in search of more opportunities than those readily available to Black people in the Deep South, "always had an impeccable sense of shirt and tie and suit'. "In order to move in certain spaces where coloured people were not allowed to be, you want to be dressed the right way to be able to fit in,' says Wesley, 53, now a senior pastor in Alexandria, Virginia. But Wesley also got an early warning: What he wore could be used against him. His father forbade baseball caps because some street gang members wore them in certain ways, and his father was concerned authorities would make stereotypical or racist assumptions about his son if he were seen wearing one. Fashion and style can often be seen as tools, signifiers of culture and identity, whether intentional or assumed. There's likely no group for whom that the belief has been more true than Black men. It's not just what they wear, but also how it's been perceived by others seeing it on a Black man, sometimes at serious cost. Read more: 'From Savile Row to track suits': What to expect at this year's Met Gala "It's always a dialogue, between what you can put on and what you can't take off,' says Jonathan Square, assistant professor at Parsons School of Design and among the advisers to a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute that kicks off with Monday's Met Gala (May 5). "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style', opening to the public May 10, focuses on Black designers and menswear. It uses the 2009 book, Slaves To Fashion: Black Dandyism And The Styling Of Black Diasporic Identity , by guest curator and Barnard College professor Monica L Miller, as a foundational inspiration for the show. The dress code for the celebrity-laden, fashion extravaganza fundraiser that is the Met Gala is "Tailored For You', with high-profile Black male entertainers like Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo and ASAP Rocky joining Vogue editor Anna Wintour as co-chairs. "When we're talking about Black men ... we are talking about a group, an ethnic and racial group and cultural group that has historically dealt with adversity, oppression, systemic oppression,' says Kimberly Jenkins, fashion studies scholar and founder of the Fashion and Race Database, who contributed an essay for the exhibit's catalogue. "And so clothing matters for them in terms of social mobility, self-expression, agency.' Through the decades, that self-expression has taken many forms and been adopted by others. Take the zoot suit, first popularised in the 1920s in urban centres like New York's Harlem, with its wide-legged, high-waisted pants and long suit coats with padded shoulders. The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of styles related to hip-hop culture, such as jeans worn sagging off the hips, oversized jerseys and jackets with designer logos. Hoodies, sneakers and other streetwear were popularised by Black men before becoming global fashion staples. For some, it was about always being dressed "appropriately' or "respectably' to demonstrate to the mainstream that Black men were in fact equal, not lesser beings, criminals or thugs. The Met exhibit, for example, includes material from civil rights activist WEB Du Bois that showcases how seriously he took the tailoring of his clothes. Met Gala co-host Rocky made a point of tailored suits and high fashion earlier this year during his trial on firearms charges for which he was ultimately found not guilty - Yves Saint Laurent even sent out a press release touting his court attire. Others purposely picked their clothing as a pushback and challenge to white standards of what was acceptable, like the Black Panthers' berets and black leather jackets, or colourful dashikis that signaled connection to Pan-Africanism. But it has never been a one-way message. Debates over the clothes Black men wear and how they wear them have at times turned into a form of cultural and literal policing, like when a young Black man sued a New York department store in 2013, saying he was racially profiled and detained by police after buying an expensive belt. Elka Stevens, associate professor and fashion design programme coordinator at Howard University, describes a gatekeeping weaponisation of fashion, where some believe "people don't have the right to wear the finest designer clothes based upon their skin color, or how they look, or how they're being classified'. "But if you don't dress at a particular standard, or you don't dress what's considered to be appropriate for said venue or occasion, that gets weaponised as well,' she adds. Zoot suits were condemned in the WWII era as unpatriotic for how much fabric they required during wartime scarcity. When Allen Iverson and other athletes started bringing hip-hop style and sensibility to the NBA, the league pushed back in 2005 with a dress code calling for business attire for players on the sidelines to promote what it considered a "professional' image. And even as streetwear styles and sneakers have become big business for global fashion, they can still be looked down upon based on the body wearing them, says Stevens. "That which was previously associated with street culture and particularly Black street culture, now is part of our everyday,' she says. "But again, who's wearing it makes a huge difference.' Read more: Met Gala 101: What to know about 'fashion's biggest night out' this year There's perhaps no starker example than that of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old killed in Florida in 2012. He was shot by a man who found the sight of the hoodie-wearing Black teen suspicious, leading to the confrontation in which Martin died. Even as hoodies have become essential dressing for everyone from kids to corporate CEOs, it's "the presence of that person who we've identified as being Black or someone identifies as being Black that causes the problem no matter what, no matter what they have on,' Stevens says. It's a reality of life in the US that Wesley has wrestled with. After Martin's death, he wore a hoodie while behind the pulpit at Alfred Street Baptist Church and spoke of his worries about how his own young sons would be perceived. Like his father before him and for the same reasons, there were certain styles he never allowed his sons – now 21 and 18 – to wear. Sagging jeans? He "just won't allow it. I refuse to. Not only because of fear of being stereotyped by the police, but also labeled by society. Maybe I'm wrong for that. I don't know,' Wesley says. "To me, it's a shame that my attire can neither hide my colour, it can never elevate me above it in your stereotype, but it can always confirm it,' Wesley says. "So my suit doesn't get me out of, 'Oh, he's still a Black man who's a threat,' but the hoodie makes it go, 'Oh, he's a Black man who's the threat.'' – AP
