This Word Means: 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.