In the sparkle of camera flashes on the first Monday in May, it is easy to forget that with Gala it is not only an expensive -looking parade of celebrities: it is also the opening celebration for a museum show. This year the party will inaugurate “Superfine: tailor -made Black Style”, An exhibition of the costume institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that follows the influence of the Black Dandy for more than 300 years.
The exhibition investigates how Dandyism, a style of raised clothing that was once imposed as slaved people, was re -made by black aesthetes in a tool of social mobility and self -definition. It can take the shape of a two-way 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 exercised their clothing and instruments of both flair and function.
“Dandyism is a practice that is not only about clothing, clothing, accessories,” said Monica L. Miller, the guest curator of the exhibition and a professor in Africana Studies at Barnard College. “It is often about the strategic usage Of those things in certain political moments, around certain cultural junctions. “
Professor Miller, whose book from 2009, “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black DiaSporic Identity”, inspired the exhibition, searched historical societies, museums and private collections to find pieces that black dandyism were on turning points in history. In a recent interview in the basement of the with, prior to the opening of the exhibition on 10 May, she chose seven items for further investigation.
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