Are dress codes made to be broken? Each year, the Met Gala — which serves as a critical fundraiser for the preservation of fashion history — gives attendees a dress code inspired by the Met Costume Institute’s latest exhibition. Even though fans can’t attend the gala, as watchers of the red carpet coverage, we get to decide who understood the assignment and who missed the mark. This year’s exhibition is Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, and Gala attendees have been given the dress code of “Tailored for You.” But what’s the meaning behind the 2025 Met Gala theme? As we know from past galas, the most successful looks are often the ones that draw from fashion history, so let’s take a closer look at the history book that inspired this year’s exhibition.Â
The Superfine exhibition is guest-curated by Monica L. Miller, whose 2005 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identities explores the cultural history of Black dandies from the 18th century through the 21st century. Historically, a dandy is a man who takes deliberate and extreme care in the way he dresses and grooms, which is often a feminine-coded trait. On this ambiguity, Miller notes, “The dandy is a figure who exists in the space between masculine and feminine, homosexual and heterosexual, seeming and being.” Black dandies are especially complex figures, because their clothing simultaneously subverts and fulfills expectations of racial identity, depending on where they are in the world and who they are with.Â
From the 16th through the 18th century, visual depictions of enslaved young Black males dressed in fancy serving uniforms or livery served as a visual representation of the objectification and power their owners held over them. Miller suggests that a famous 18th century Black dandy, Julius Soubise, used his elaborate and foppish fashion choices as a way to fight back against the objectifying stares of white Londoners, and to exert his individuality as a celebrity.Â
Moving across the Atlantic to North America, Miller explores the rapid transformations of Black identity in the United States, especially after emancipation. Under this new social order, many free Black men who moved to the North enjoyed their newfound freedom by adopting more fanciful and luxurious styles. Minstrel shows dominated popular culture during this period, featuring actors in blackface, tailcoats, and top hats, which made it clear that despite their desire to be considered gentlemen, “free blacks, no matter how proper, savvy, educated, and within the law, would not be considered eligible for such a revered status” by white Americans, Miller wrote.
Historically, the Black dandy’s style walks a thin line between assimilating to white fashion norms and resisting them through flamboyant, individual expression. During the early 20th century Harlem Renaissance movement, Miller observes that this tension led to both critique and praise for the dandy figure, as Black authors and artists sought a more modern form of self-representation that would move beyond stereotypes.
As Miller argues, Black dandyism does not imitate white style, but rather adds its own deliberate inflection onto dominant forms of dress to subvert them. In essence, a dandy carefully studies the rules, so that they can break free from them.Â
To learn more, you can also explore the works of two of the contemporary artists Miller identifies as members of the “New Dandyism” movement: Yinka Shonibare and Iké Ubé. This Met Gala, here’s hoping we’ll see some excellent examples of style being used as an “articulation of freedom and self-possession,” as Miller would say, rather than conventionality.
Marissa Croft holds a doctorate in Rhetoric and Public Culture from Northwestern University and works as the Research and Insights Analyst at the Chicago History Museum. Her dissertation project offers a detailed look at the changing rules and rhetoric around fashion and accessories during the French Revolution, and her current research interests include the history of garment workers in Chicago and the 19th century women’s dress reform movement. She is the president of the Chicago Historical Costume Society and is an experienced sewist with over 17 years of garment construction experience. Â