Superfine: Tailoring Black Style

The theme of the 2025 MET Gala is Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.

Even though the Met Gala has passed, the Met Costume Institute’s Spring Exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style deserves a spotlight of its own. Focused on Black dandyism, a topic that visually communicates the depths of the ties of black fashion and history. The exhibit is a deeply moving exploration of the abilities of fashion as a powerful aspect of culture, identity, freedom, and life.

Through 12 profound themes like Heritage, Beauty, and Respectability, Superfine traces the threads of Black style across centuries, exploring how tailoring has been used as self-expression, protection, rebellion, and pride. All of which have incredible meaning in what it means to exist in different eras of time and how they live on through us, generations later. The stories woven into each artwork of this exhibit speak not just to fashion but to lived experiences through the lenses of race, class, sexuality, and identity.

The exhibition features about 40 brands and designers including the late Virgil Abloh. Abloh has always been a pioneer in expressing and encouraging black imagination. His work in the exhibit is a proud reminder of the immense creativity used to combat the intense oppression of black culture and identity.

Through different patterns and silhouettes, black communities have always curated lifestyles and art symbolizing aspects of their life experiences as black people in society. Abloh’s work is only one example and storyline of black historical expression of culture, heritage, and hardships in the eye of fashion as the exhibition connects centuries of art.

Whether you’re familiar with Black dandyism or not, this exhibit invites you to look closer, listen deeper, and reflect on the experiences we often overlook. It is an incredible magnifying glass looking into the DNA of fashion and history that is often neglected.

This is fashion history—Black history—told in fabric, silhouette, and style. It’s worth your attention. It’s worth your time. Feel the emotions, take a step back, and explore the topics you find a connection to. The spectacle of the Met Gala may be over, but the stories of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style invite you to discover a monumental space in the connections of black identity, history, and fashion.

Written by: Gaelane Leandre