Superfine: Tailoring Black Style (Met)

[Wilfrid]

Yes, of course there are things worth seeing in this vast, rambling show. But what a badly designed hodge podge it is.

Two general complaints. It looks and feels like a much bigger version of an FIT show. There is that small step up to a shelf where the mannequins are positioned. Unlike at FIT, however, only some of the mannequins are on this shelf. Most of them are on towering pedestals that have been placed on the shelf. So you spend an hour craning your neck back trying to examine costumes from the weirdest angle. It's not too late. They could just take the pedestals out and put the mannequins at the normal level.

Second, it's so dark in there. Okay, FIT is dark, but it doesn't have the crowds. While you're not breaking your neck, you are trying not to tread on people.

I have more to say about the content but I have visitors arriving...

[Wilfrid]

...So, mannequins to the ceiling and plenty of art and historical artifacts on the walls. 

The theme of the show is "a cultural and historical examination of Black style over three hundred years through the concept of dandyism." Dandyism. The curators seem to know what dandyism is. Dandyism isn't any one particular style of dress. I would say, and I think the curators would agree, that the Dandy is someone obsessed with their appearance; someone who takes great agency in deciding how they look (and dandies are men or women dressed as men, historically speaking).

So, portraits of Black dandies from eighteenth century France, okay. But the countless representations of enslaved Black people in fancy dress? No. These are absolutely not dandies. They are subjects who have been dressed up by their "owners" like so many toys. I am inclined to say the same about the military figures, constrained by uniforms.

Meanwhile, the mannequins represent not a history of Black style but very much contemporary Black style; haute couture from the 2020s, even through 2026 collections. Hello Pharrell. Sometimes the history presented around the walls is reflected in these contemporary styles; often not. If you look at a haute couture suit with simple, clean lines and wonder what it has to do with the show, the answer is usually simply that the designer is Black. It's no more a "dandy" outfit than anything else on the runway.

So a hodge podge. Historical artifacts that are often irrelevant together with present-day haute couture that often seems disconnected from the show's theme.

Edit out the supposed dandies of slavery days, bring the mannequins down to earth, and it would be a much better and more manageable show.

[splinky]

I think what's being shown is the evolution of how enslaved people, who were once slaves to fashion (in their work clothes), eventually managed to make fashion their slave. 

The show is about agency and identity. It's about a people who had once been an actual luxury item to eventually owning and designing luxury items. It's about making castoff clothing and trimmings into bespoke clothing. Later, it's about tweaking regular consumer fashion into a personal statement and now it's about consuming high end fashion and styling it for your life and to sending a message about who you are or who you want to be. Clothes DO make the man. 

I was moved to see articles of ALT's clothing and the way in which he collaborated with designers, to make things work for his personal style but also for his height and his frame, over time. 

[Wilfrid]

Thanks for that and will think about it.

[splinky]

Think about the character Django in "Django Unchained"and clothes as a signifier of status. When first we see him, he's in the typical rags of the enslaved/imprisoned, then when Schultz offers him any clothes he wants to wear, in order to pose as Schultz' valet, Django chooses that blue monstrosity of a clown suit because in his experience that's what a "fancy slave" might wear. By the time we see him enter Candieland he has found his own style which is some version of cowboy cool. Finally, having triumphed over evil, Django leaves Candieland, wearing the same bespoke suit that Calvin Candie died wearing.