New Met Gala exhibit 'Superfine' gives voice to emerging Black designers

NEW YORK -- "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" is the first Costume Institute exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years devoted to menswear.

"The range is phenomenal," says 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.

The professor of Africana studies said this was a way to showcase Black history in an unexpected way.

"We're always looking for ways to represent ourselves in a way that is appropriate," Miller, who is a guest curator, said.

Dandyism is a mindset that goes far beyond fashion and is a powerful expression of identity and resistance against social norms.

The show, devoted entirely to menswear features only designers of color - a first for the Met.

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 organized it into 12 conceptual sections: Ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, champion, respectability, jook, heritage, beauty, cool and cosmopolitanism.

One of the sections includes a nod to the zoot suit.

"The zoot suit grew up in Harlem. We can often focus on the difficulties in history, they're important, they're instructive, the joy is also important," said contributor Dandy Wellington.

The exhibit covers roughly 300 years to contemporary designers.

The section covering Fredrick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois projects respectability.

Du Bois, Miller points out, was not only a civil rights activist but also one of the best-dressed men in turn-of-the-century America. He traveled extensively overseas, which meant he needed "clothing befitting his status as a representative of Black America to the world."

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: 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.

Historic pieces help fill in the blanks.

"If I'm trying to tell the story of Black representation before the 20th century, it's very hard to find garments that were worn by or made by the enslaved," Miller said.

The fabric and tailoring is obvious, but digging deeper are the stories within the garments.

"The things that they went through, the lessons they have to tell us and all of that is on display in 'Superfine,'" Wellington said.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)