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 Met Fifth Avenue

The Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition presents a cultural and historical examination of Black style over three hundred years through the concept of dandyism. 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.