Tailoring Black Style
By Monica L. Miller, with Andrew Bolton and Tyler Mitchell
From the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style traces the complex and vibrant legacy of menswear across three centuries of Black culture from today’s hip-hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement as a symbol of creative and political agency, to its surprising origins as an imposed uniform for servants and enslaved people. Evocative new photography highlights garments by contemporary designers such as Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams, and Grace Wales Bonner that are shown alongside historical attire worn by Black luminaries including Frederick Douglass, Alexandre Dumas père, Muhammad Ali, and André Leon Talley, all of which is complemented by fascinating paintings, prints, and other significant artworks. Scholar Monica L. Miller contextualizes these reflections in her text and shows how the evolution of dandy style inspired new visions of Black masculinity that use the power of clothing and dress as a means of self-expression, thus shaping—and continuing to define—cultural, aesthetic, and social realities.
Retail Price: $75
Details: Hardcover, 372 pages, 12.25” x 9.5”
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tailoring Black Style
By Monica L. Miller, with Andrew Bolton and Tyler Mitchell
From the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style traces the complex and vibrant legacy of menswear across three centuries of Black culture from today’s hip-hop aesthetic and popular street trends, through its use during the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement as a symbol of creative and political agency, to its surprising origins as an imposed uniform for servants and enslaved people. Evocative new photography highlights garments by contemporary designers such as Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams, and Grace Wales Bonner that are shown alongside historical attire worn by Black luminaries including Frederick Douglass, Alexandre Dumas père, Muhammad Ali, and André Leon Talley, all of which is complemented by fascinating paintings, prints, and other significant artworks. Scholar Monica L. Miller contextualizes these reflections in her text and shows how the evolution of dandy style inspired new visions of Black masculinity that use the power of clothing and dress as a means of self-expression, thus shaping—and continuing to define—cultural, aesthetic, and social realities.
Retail Price: $75
Details: Hardcover, 372 pages, 12.25” x 9.5”
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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